Sally Singer, Vogue.com Creative Digital Director
It seems only fitting that in a season where the the buzzword was “buy now,” the Paris collections would close with a Nicolas Ghesquière for Louis Vuitton iPhone sheath, an accessory so completely this minute that one had to contain the urge to snatch it from the runway and make a dash for the airport. No, it is not that one’s phone suddenly needs to be branded with logos and hardware; we know a cell case when we see one. But this sheath slyly acknowledged a more relevant truth: That for a certain chic woman the phone is the new handbag. It just needed to be dressed thus.
This is what Ghesquière has always done so well, in my view, both at Balenciaga and Vuitton: dial up the zeitgeist for a chat and then report back to the rest of us about where we are now before realizing it. And next spring that is a very twisted, bourgeois place, where one wears fantastic mid-calf jersey, subversive tailoring, and transparent yet intelligently discreet evening dresses. All in all a terrific show, and one that wrapped up riffs and themes of other equally strong collections from Jonathan Anderson for Loewe, Phoebe Philo at Céline, and Demna Gvasalia for Balenciaga (which offered a shockingly gorgeous and cunningly perverse wardrobe that will be hugely influential, just watch). One thing to note in these collections was the strength and diversity of the accessories. So many bags. By spring your phone will face some stiff competition.
I think, for me, one of the great learnings of Paris was that “buy now” is beside the point, more often than not, when clothes are truly exquisite. At Valentino and Alexander McQueen, the buzz phrase that comes to mind to describe Pierpaolo Piccioli and Sarah Burton’s designs is “buy now, wear forever.” If one is that lucky, of course.
Nicole Phelps, Director, Vogue Runway
I’d like to give a shout-out to Rick Owens, who despite his dimly lit location in the bowels of the Palais de Tokyo, produced one of the week’s most exhilarating moments. With their odd volumes and eccentric layering, his clothes were strange, yet compelling. If that’s true season in and season out chez Owens, this time there was a bewitching beauty to the evening gowns with their twisted couture drape. He also made the best argument for floaty, floor-skimming ostrich-feather cloaks the runway has ever seen.
On the subject of exhilaration, Stella McCartney gets big ups for a collection that doubled down on her anti-leather and anti-fur stance, and a reformatted show complete with a model dance-off. If it looked good on Instagram, trust me, it felt even better in real life. Jean Touitou was on a similar wavelength with his A.P.C. dance party. At that Saturday night défilé turned fete, it wasn’t just the models who got to kick up their heels. The crowd got their groove on, too. The message I took away from all three shows: Fashion is a business, yes, and a particularly tough one at the moment, but big ideas and out-of-the-box thinking will produce better results than endless bottom lining.
Sarah Mower, Vogue.com Chief Critic
Me, I’m always looking for new signs of life, and in Paris, we definitely got that electricity. Jacquemus was a real thrill to start with—a young French designer re-owning the shawl-collared, straw sun-hatted peasant costume of Provence, via what I saw as nostalgia for the haute couture of Christian Lacroix (spot-on, amidst all the ’80s referencing which is going on at the moment). The staging had theatrical presence, was done on a shoestring, and nevertheless showed what Simon Porte Jacquemus realistically has to wear, such as lovely lace blouses and wide sailor pants.
These days, that circle has to be squared very quickly by young designers in the fashion industry. The demand to make a compelling emotional impression and clothes honed for immediate sales at the same time is an acute pressure. Nevertheless, in Paris there are two more examples of designers, unheard of a couple of years ago, who have surged to the forefront of fashion by doing exactly that. At Loewe, Jonathan Anderson is blessed with the knack—he showed a coherently grown-up fit-and-flare silhouette, and tons of sellable accessories. Then, there’s Balenciaga, which, after only two runway seasons under the leadership of Demna Gvasalia has pulled into a leadership position so influential that everyone from his elders to his baby-followers is currently popping out their shoulders and elongating their sleeves in line with what he does. This time, Balenciaga also said: weird, bright, ’60s floral prints! Glam Krystle Carrington draped tops! And, for goodness sake, everyday, street-ready hooded nylon anoraks. That, to me, is my snapshot of the trajectory of new Paris talent.
Chioma Nnadi, Vogue.com Fashion News Director
There’s a youthful energy in Paris that’s continuing to invigorate the collections from the ground up. And aside from the major players of the new guard who you mentioned, Sarah—Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga, Jonathan Anderson at Loewe—it’s been exciting to see emerging designers take their first steps here with such confidence, too. Vejas Kruszewski is only 19 and already has an LVMH Special Award to his name. He made his debut in New York with Fall 2015 and showed his label in Paris for the first time this season, gathering a small audience of European fashion insiders and the downtown kids who have had his back since he started—model Hari Nef, stylist Haley Wollens, DJ Venus X, and the like. Kruszewski is self-taught, and yet his unisex clothes manage to turn the familiar dimensions of workwear—carpenter pants, denim jackets—upside down and inside out with modern and unexpectedly wearable results.
Rihanna was another first-timer on the Paris schedule this season, and put on a surprisingly impressive show as well. With a collection that was part Marie Antoinette, part around-the-way realness, the singer proved that she can create clothes with the same swagger that she wears them. Laced with pearls, do-rags, and tons of attitude, the pretty pink sportswear spoke to the way cool girls and boy are subverting the macho world of streetwear right now. In a week that was dominated by troubling sensationalist headlines and heists, hers was a celebrity success story.
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