And so Paris Fashion Week concludes, and on what a high.
The final day of shows reminded attendees, and those eagerly watching at home, how fantastic fashion can be when it finds the perfect positioning between conceptual and agenda-setting, thoughtful and considered, easy and wearable. A timely trio of shows to tie up the season neatly.
Discover here all you need to know about Chanel, Miu Miu and Louis Vuitton's AW24 shows.
The Inspirations
'It’s a very warm collection, with layers of materials, colours and volumes. It pays tribute to Deauville, the legendary place where Gabrielle Chanel’s destiny changed forever,' explained Chanel's Virginie Viard of her AW24 collection. The link to coastal Deauville in Normandy came through in chunky sailor sweaters and knits featuring the area's landscapes, with the palette of pink, mauve, orange and pale blue referencing the ever-changing colours of the Deauville sky. Another influence, explained the show notes, was David Bowie in the Seventies, all loose flares with the recognisable silhouette visible here.
At Miu Miu, inspirations came from a (stylish) life well lived, calling on different chapters for inspiration. 'Evocations of childhood are expressed with deliberately shrunken proportions, cropped sleeves, rounded-toe shoes, archetypical clothing types that directly recall those worn in youth. By contrast, adulthood is expressed through recognised signifiers of propriety and chic gloves and handbags, brooches, tailoring, the little black dress,' read the show notes.
Girlishness has long been applied to Miuccia Prada's sensibility, especially for her Miu Miu work, but here it was more openly addressed and expanded upon how the brand sees it, calling for a rethink of it and its associations. '[It] is a word we can revalue, from a pejorative gendered noun, anchored to age, to a universal idiom expressive of the strength of rebellion, a spirit of freedom and individuality, one attribute of a richer whole. Perceived as an inherent component of Miu Miu, it should be examined not as alone trait but as a fundamental aspect of a wider temperament,' it said.
Louis Vuitton's AW24 show marked 10 years to the day (how satisfying) since Nicolas Ghesquière showed his first collection for the house. As might be expected, there were moments of self-reference or as the press release explained: 'memory as the guide for imagination.' Keen fashion observers will find familiar tropes throughout, be it the 18th-century SS18 jackets or the frou-frou skirts from AW20. The notes continued: 'One detects a tinge of earlier affinities, felicitous imprints of beloved garments, and affection for a gesture, a cut or an embroidery. The imagination absorbs it all. What is familiar is renewed.'
The Clothes
Chanel put forward a spin on the wardrobe loved by Coco, with long-standing house signatures walking the catwalk for AW24. Aside from the soft, gentle and quite delicious palette (and plenty of universally wearable black), the collection's most notable attribute to consider was its note on silhouette. It was relaxed, even in the expected tweed skirt suits or evening dresses, with some completed with a knitted cardigan belted over. Here, coats were long, no matter if matching skirts were cut mini, while trousers fell further to brush the floor. The introduction of Del Boy (most definitely not the Viard reference but obvious to any Brits) shearlings felt fresh for the season, while motorcycle leather jackets offered a tough, cool-girl edge often MIA at Chanel.
At Miu Miu, there were plenty of clothes to love and lust over as pieces were styled and piled together to make for a collection that was twice as nice: whether it be neon-printed A-line skirts with padded jackets, or excellent wool coats worn over scrubs-blue pyjama sets. With the idea of abstract generations being the inspiration, looks were obviously adult or childlike, with coats either being short and shrunken (quite Princess Charlotte), or in fake fur worn as the ultimate signifier of grown-up glamour. What wrestled with these coats for the Internet top spot was two looks confirming the inevitable return of skinny jeans, which were worn low on the waist and extremely second-skin. Yikes.
Perhaps more wearable for now then, the skirts that ran throughout. Mrs Prada is a skirt woman, of course, and here she showed a wardrobe of options to love, be they sorbet-shaded, flouncy cotton white or shockingly bright neons.
After the show, Prada said of the collection of pieces that she thinks they are 'classics. Everyone can choose from them to be a child, or a lady. Every single morning, I decide if I’m going to be 15-years-old, or a lady near death.'
At the end, a run of elegant Little Black Dresses that so easily could read prim, proper but here they had unexpected cut-outs to flash some flesh to prove that even when the Miu Miu girl does grow up (or decides to at least try on grown-up fashion) there's always going to be that something to subvert the subtext.
At Louis Vuitton, a celebration of a decade of design. In keeping with the party spirit, diaphanous dresses came decorated with sequins at its opener (Emma Stone might want to bookmark that for this weekend's Oscars), with this shimmering mood following through much of the collection. Or, the opposite occurred where once-printed and gleaming coats shined, they were now reworked for AW24 in neutrals.
Ghesquière's Louis Vuitton has long had a space-age touch about it, mixing the robotic with the historic, and this infiltrated here too with pieces that hinted to progression and motion to make it perhaps the best of his tenure just yet. Sparked alive with a new energy that he shows no signs of slowing down on his design of the Louis Vuitton woman. The collection made for a true feast of fashion, proving why Ghesquière is so revered as the designer's designer, with an influence that hangs in each of our wardrobes.
The Accessories
It made sense that Viard should pitch so intently on the hat this season. Finding her swing at Chanel, having taken over from Karl Lagerfeld since the resort 2020 collection, it was back to the maison's millinery heritage with wide-brim hats that were pinned each with a differing brooch detail. A must-have to add to your watch list or emulate accordingly come the summer months as this is a tricky one to wear come the windy conditions of its intended season. On the bag front, it was a return to classics as the familiar 2.55 style became the enduring catwalk staple, here delivered in delicious pastel hues reminiscent of the Nineties iterations. On the footwear front, suede platform boots already familiar and universally popular with Chanel's clients.
A pearl necklace was the primary takeaway at Miu Miu, as they came worn over crushed satin dresses, in crumpled shirt collars and peeking out of pea coats. Last season's note on overspilling bags came through again, with models carrying the bags in a similar vein, but this time they were zipped up. Miu Miu shoes endure as a front-row staple and the AW24 options have perhaps the most universal appeal in some time. Alongside spa-style slippers rendered in leather with gold logos were almost-flat Mary-Janes, a signature of Mrs P, with exaggerated pointed toes in black and cream. Other accessories of note here were gloves (lots of them), scarves flung languidly around the neck and cycle-sporty sunglasses worn in contrast.
At Vuitton, the collection's celebratory feel was grounded in the accessories. The brand's most famous touchpoint here came in familiar bags that many devotees will already own, be it ones introduced in Ghesquiere's tenure or pre-dating his decade, paired with block-heeled boots that looked wearable, easily worn for the every day and ushering in the heel as the must-have for next winter.
The Casting
In a month of shows that has, at large, disappointed on the front of casting, Mrs Prada and her casting director Ashley Brokaw straightened things out with her Miu Miu line-up. Admittedly, the overall size diversity followed the suit of the majority of behemoth shows in sticking to by and large sample sizing (it would have been wonderful to see some curve casting amongst the models chosen) but it made for a breath of fresh air regardless.
Who was there? No less than Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, Ethel Cain, The Crown's Prince Harry Luther Ford, Angel Haze, Qin Huilan — a 70-year-old doctor and long-time Prada collector —, Little Simz, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Ángela Molina, who walked the runway with a warm grin, all joined the professionals such as Gigi Hadid, Mica Argañaraz, Vittoria Ceretti, Rianne Van Rompaey and Hilary Rhoda, who has not walked a major show this side of the pandemic.
The startling reportage of this line-up here might seem unwarranted as a stellar cast is to be expected at a Miu Miu show. Just a season ago we honoured original Miu Miu girl Rosemary Ferguson's return with our December cover moment and previous walkers have included Chloe Sevigny and Emma Corrin, Troye Sivan and Zaya Wade, but set amongst this particular season of shows it deserves a moment of applause.
The Sets
How do you get a tired group of fashion editors to focus? Wake them up in the morning by starting your fashion show with a film starring Brad Pitt and Penélope Cruz playing out across the show space. Props to Rianne Van Rompaey for playing a great waiter, too. The acting behemoths, who both have a strong connection to Chanel with Pitt its first male No5 face and Cruz an ambassador at present, acted out a scene in tribute to the 1966 film, A Man and a Woman. Its director Claude Lelouch even had a seat on the front row.
Then, onto the clothes parade, where models walked by on boardwalk flooring against the large screen as it projected ambient sunsets and countryside scenes evoking those Deauville inspirations.
Like Chanel, and yet entirely its own, Miu Miu also opened its show with a series of films, as is often Mrs Prada's want, by Belgian-American artist Cécile B. Evans. Here, these vignettes were aligned with the clothing's look to memories and in being 'a shared language, one informed by the moment we all live within, a universal message nevertheless resonant with our unique experience,' read the show notes.
Guests were sat across curved wooden benches as the screens above played the short films. Miu Miu shared that after the show elements will be given a life at La Réserve Des Arts, a non-profit association which supports the cultural and creative sector in the development of the circular and solidarity economy.
Upon entering the Cour Carrée at the Louvre, the same venue where Ghesquière presented his first Vuitton collection, the 4000-plus guests were greeted by a large sphere of light that made a purpose out of proving the technical beautiful. The installation was by artist Philippe Parreno in collaboration with film production designer James Chinlund, with the show complete with a soundscape by sound designer Nicolas Becker.
The Front Row
Two ELLE cover girls headed up the line-up at Chanel: Naomi Campbell (March) and Margaret Qualley (April). Each wore tweed skirt suits by the house, in contrasting colours, and were joined by other Chanel loyalists like Penelope Cruz, and Vanessa Paradis and new-to-Chanel faces like Olivia Dean and Zazie Beetz.
Despite being on the final day of fashion month, guests showed little signs of fatigue when arriving at the Miu Miu show as they sprinted into the venue having passed the cheering crowds. Emma Corrin and Sydney Sweeney arrived with a new hairstyle each, Paloma Elsesser illustrated how to wear the polo top trend, Lorde made a surprise turn, Bel Powley wore some new specs, Myha'la Herrold was a vision in polka and Demi Singleton was a lesson in prep chic.
The arrivals at Louis Vuitton befit its special anniversary as a loyal troupe of guests made their way into the Louvre, passing Alexa Chung for some witty repartee on the way in. Stars including Emma Stone, Cate Blanchett, Lisa Manoban, Chloe Grace Moretz, Lea Seydoux, Liya Kebede and Ava DuVernay all came out in support of their dear Nicolas.
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