1. Beautiful Clothes, No Gimmicks
Kate Lanphear, women’s style director: Real clothes matter again.
Nick Haramis, editor at large: For a long time, it felt as if we were in an era of clown clothes, or high-concept designs with deliberately exaggerated, oversize proportions. Jonathan Anderson is an example of somebody who did it better than anyone. Since going to Dior, he’s had to reconcile being innovative and making beautiful clothes the Dior customer would want to wear. Kate’s been referring to Dior and Chanel as a clash of the titans; Anderson and Matthieu Blazy have been tasked with ushering fashion into a new era. Their designs felt stripped back, and the focus was on the actual garments rather than on showmanship.
All of the season’s most exciting designers — Simone Bellotti at Jil Sander, Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford and Michael Rider at Celine — showed clothes that were meant to be worn, which sounds kind of obvious and silly to say. But they weren’t gimmicky or overly conceptual: They were actual garments for real women.
Patrick Li, creative director: Part of it might be that many of these designers are just a bit more mature and they’re making a different kind of statement.
K.L.: Speaking of maturity, we saw designers using casting to better communicate their vision with diverse, intergenerational faces who believably inhabited the clothes with a self-possessed assurance — whereas in past seasons you’d see voluminous, sculptural shapes that often overpowered the wearer.
P.L.: A shape that’s too enveloping might feel too ubiquitous now. I also noticed a lot of organza, these sheer geometries that sat on top of the body and revealed its shape.
Angela Koh, market editor: I really like the new slim and minimal silhouette that’s emerging. You saw it at the Row, Celine and Balenciaga in the pants and skirts.
K.L.: Absolutely, we’re witnessing a new suiting proportion emerge as designers tinker with silhouette. At Jil Sander, that meant jackets with a reduced, narrow shoulder and higher buttons that subtly flared over the hip. It felt like a riff on ’90s suiting, but I believe it could be signaling an upending or reinvention of minimalism in the coming seasons.
Jameson Montgomery, market editor: I don’t think everything that falls under the wearable category was necessarily minimalism, but you had some people with really idiosyncratic design practices that still moved in the direction of reality. Like Nicolas Di Felice at Courrèges, who conceived of his show as “24 hours in the life of a Courrèges woman.” At Prada, you had a ton of adornment, but each model had four exits and took off a layer each time, which felt like an overt demonstration of how the clothes could live in the world.
N.H.: Even at one of the season’s more whack-a-doo presentations — Duran Lantink’s Jean Paul Gaultier show, where a couple of models had smoke emanating from their garments and a woman wore a dress structured to look as if she had an erection — there was a beautiful, surprisingly wearable red dress with ballooning sleeves and a kind of pronounced bust that made Kate and me gasp when it came down the runway.
K.L.: Not too sure about wearability, but the way that dress moved was thrilling: It swayed side to side, and it bounced up and down.
2. Maximalist Accessories
K.L.: We keep talking about the reality of the business. There’s still a bottom line and, with it, immense pressure to spur growth. As a result, it’s been an amazing season for accessories.
N.H.: That’s the entry point for a lot of people who covet these clothes but don’t have access to them. So many of us can’t afford to buy, say, a jacket, so the brands are making shoes, bags and hats as desirable as possible, in the hopes of engaging with a new audience.
K.L.: Right, the coat costs $5,000, but maybe you could save up and buy a pair of shoes or a piece of costume jewelry.
N.H.: At Prada, there were these embroidered shoes that were at least as compelling as some of the clothes in the collection, if not more.
K.L.: The models stripped back layers, but their phenomenal shoes didn’t change — for example, a pair of pale blue feathered lace-up boots. At Dior, the shoes looked like lily pads; at Chanel, they had little silicone jelly flowers on them. And there were all sorts of jewelry trinkets at Celine. This season, all the costume jewelry was strong; all the hats made a statement. The biggest takeaway was the return to personal style. Expressing individuality with flair feels especially important in this moment, when an A.I. algorithm is flattening style to a generic “West Village Girl” formula.
N.H.: The hats have been particularly nuts. We’re used to a sort of pirate headpiece from Andreas Kronthaler at Vivienne Westwood, but at Louis Vuitton the models wore giant baskets that covered their heads and partially obscured their faces. At Noir Kei Ninomiya, models wore hair sculptures in the shapes of animals. What looked to be a squirrel or a buck was actually hair.
K.L.: More tempered, classic wardrobe-building separates, like a trench, need something compelling that really tugs at your heartstrings (and purse strings). We also witnessed and heard about physical fights for merch in stores.
N.H.: The Chanel stores in Paris were especially chaotic. One editor was said to have been considering buying a shoe, only to have it ripped out of her hand.
K.L.: This was the very first store delivery of Matthieu’s designs, so the pieces are collectable, and that’s coupled with a feeling of scarcity. It turns out there are limits on the number of Chanel bags one person can buy, which editors were reaching on this trip. When was the last time people felt that kind of rabid desire?
3. Fashion and the 1 Percent
K.L.: One thing we kept asking ourselves was, “Who is this all for?” Who can access this, when fashion retail prices have become prohibitive for the majority of consumers? At Matières Fécales, there was a ball gag that was part of a pearl necklace, with the largest pearl stuck in the mouth — the model was choking on her pearls.
P.L.: And in the case of the masks made of dollar bills, blinded by money. I also loved the more discreet pearls worn underneath fabric at the Row.
N.H.: I believe the Matières Fécales collection was called “The One Percent.” So it was very literal.
K.L.: Mark Zuckerberg sitting front row at Prada prompted much discussion.
N.H.: You also had Bryan Johnson, the tech millionaire who’s trying to fight death, walking in the Matières Fécales show. At the same time, the free watch party hosted by Lyas, an influencer, gained a lot of momentum this season. He screened the shows at the Théâtre du Châtelet, a huge auditorium, and every seat was filled.
K.L.: Then there’s Gucci, which was the provocateur of the season and on the same wavelength as Matières Fécales in terms of its commentary about wealth.
N.H.: It felt as if they were presenting —
K.L.: A warning.
N.H.: Or a reflection of what one aspires to if they have wealth. There was a lot of bodymaxxing. The male models were so muscular they could barely walk; they were lumbering down the runway. It felt simultaneously like a celebration and a condemnation of the rich, showy Gucci client. Some people felt Demna wasn’t respecting the history of the house, but it’s never been about good taste.
K.L.: Sometimes there’s nothing trashier than a billionaire client, and no one can capture the grotesqueness of reality better than Demna.
N.H.: Tom Ford and Saint Laurent offered a different kind of fantasy that also spoke to insane wealth. Those women looked very expensive.
K.L.: Tom Ford’s was one of the most exquisite fashion shows I’ve ever seen. It debunked the idea that in order to be sexy, you have to look cheap. It was flawless.
A.K.: There was also this “Mad Max” apocalyptic trend — designers making clothes we might wear when we topple the 1 percent. Like at Rick Owens, where everything looked like armor, or at Junya Watanabe, where he made garments out of moto gloves.
J.M.: The pieces were gear-like and looked like what you’d wear in a sparring match — padding for a battle.
N.H.: The sleeves on some of the jackets were thigh-high leather boots with the heels dangling from the arms.
One final thing: The indoor sets for Louis Vuitton, Hermès and Miu Miu were all meant to replicate being out in the wild, in a field. There was grass and moss; you stepped through dirt and mud. There was this sense that, when you can afford everything, the only thing that’s truly luxurious is nature.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.