LAST LOOKS: BEST OF PARIS, FALL 2016
If there was one thing that was clear from the Fall 2016 Paris shows, it was that inspiration can come from anywhere. Our ten favorite collections ranged far and wide, across foreign lands and centuries of history, each of them offering new visions for where we are headed and how we’ll get there.
The big news of the week was Demna Gvasalia’s début at Balenciaga, where he reinterpreted the namesake designer’s couture legacy into sculptural shapes for a new age, with curving puffer jackets, boxy hips, and necklines that hung nonchalantly off the shoulders for a fresh, streetwise feel. Over at Vetements, the label that helped rocket Gvasalia to stardom in less than two years, he continued his aggressive reinvention of streetwear, showing his gender-bending, iconoclastic, and subversive designs in, of all places, a cathedral right in the center of Paris’s tony eighth arrondissement. The two collections together helped prove his ability to play to both sides of the industry equally well.
Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy took inspiration from ancient Egypt, with shimmering pharaonic patterns, hieroglyphic-inspired imagery, and, of course, plenty of animal prints. The Marchesa Luisa Casati—she of the famed pet cheetahs—and the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio were the central pair in Dries Van Noten’s collection, which brought a new elegance and a somewhat sinister air to the designer’s trademark vibrant and luxurious designs, set to a soundtrack of Stravinsky’s revolutionary Rite of Spring. Dance was on the minds of Valentino’s Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli as well, who turned to modern choreographers like Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Karole Armitage for a show that combined feminine grace with a very powerful and intricate form of beauty.
Hedi Slimane looked to an even more recent era at Saint Laurent, offering a heavy Eighties feel in his shimmering minidresses, oversized shoulders, and eye-catching gold belts. JW Anderson is a known provocateur for his own label, but his latest designs for Loewe demonstrated an innate sense of elegance, with trim silhouettes and intricate ornamentation that set a new standard of luxury. Chitose Abe at Sacai argued that “love will save the day,” turning the phrase (as rendered in Japanese) into an abstract graphic that took shape on her menswear-inspired designs with fresh proportions.
At Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo took jacquards to a new level, with layering, straps, and sculptural forms that were almost closer to art than fashion. Nicolas Ghesquière helped close out the week at Louis Vuitton with a vibrant collection that found a refreshing energy in innovative sportswear and ornate dresses against a set of thousands of fractured mirrors. It was, perhaps, a chance to pause and reflect before picking up the endless rush again.
Take a look at our favorite Fall 2016 collections from New York, London, and Milan.
