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After a record 108 shows and presentations this season, including Louis Vuitton’s 4,000-guest mega-show celebrating 10 years of creative director Nicolas Ghesquière (with a number of Louis Vuitton collaborators attending the occasion) and Saint Laurent’s 100-guest intimate menswear show closing the curtain on Paris Fashion Week, plus much-anticipated debuts at Alexander McQueen, Chloé and Lacoste, there’s a lot to digest after Paris Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2024.
Major houses and emerging designers alike took steps to carve out their place in the packed calendar, striving to stand out. As buyers and press board their trains and planes back home, we break down the season’s key takeaways.
Brands buck quiet luxury and return to their roots
This season, brands looked inward to refocus on their heritage and what they do best rather than grasp at overarching trends. “It feels like brands are returning to their respective DNAs after a few seasons of quiet luxury,” says Victoria Dartigues, fashion buying director at La Samaritaine.
At Chloé, Chemena Kamali’s debut, already recognised for igniting the return of boho-chic, was a case in point. “After seasons anchored in understated wardrobing, we saw Paris as a turning point away from the blanket of hushed clothes. Chemena Kamali’s feminine flair at Chloé and her celebratory finale pinpointed a mood shift,” says Rickie De Sole, women’s fashion director at Nordstrom. “The playful colour palettes at Miu Miu and Dries Van Noten offer the perfect bridge to mix the last few seasons’ darker, sombre colours with vibrant and pastel tones again.”
Isabel Marant also returned to its boho roots “with a bit of a gaucho vibe”, as Vogue Runway’s Mark Holgate noted. Think short, fringed sarape skirts; blanket coats; suede scarves. “We don’t do quiet luxury. We do unquiet luxury,” Marant told Holgate during a preview.
“Whether it’s the result of the world’s uncertainties, or the end of big fashion cycles — streetwear or quiet luxury — [brands returning to their heritage] was visible across the board,” says Anouck Duranteau-Loeper, CEO of Isabel Marant and president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Mode Féminine.
At Chanel, creative director Virginie Viard paid tribute to the very origins of the house, namely the resort town of Deauville, where Gabrielle Chanel opened her boutique in 1912. “Deauville is where everything started for the house. It’s where it all began for Gabrielle Chanel,” Viard wrote in the show notes. For the collection, the house recreated the Deauville boardwalk with models wearing wide-brimmed hats as if they strolled along the beach.
Balenciaga creative director Demna returned to what he does best — and referenced Cristóbal Balenciaga along the way. Backstage, he said: “I started with Cristóbal. That dress really is a direct reference to a black-and-white picture of his dress from the ’60s... And then there is this evolution of the Cristóbal silhouette and my aesthetic, it’s been 10 years this year since I started and this show has to represent me and my style.”
The night before Balenciaga, Demna’s brother and Vetements creative director Guram Gvasalia presented a megawatt 10th-anniversary show for Vetements, the disruptive label that the duo launched in 2014. (Demna exited in 2019.) The e-vite referred to it as “the show you’ve been waiting for, for 10 years”. The cast included Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross, Georgina Rodríguez and Natalia Vodianova, wife of LVMH scion Antoine Arnault, who opened and closed the show. And as Anwar Hadid (brother of Gigi and Bella) walked the runway with a T-shirt that read “not mom’s favourite”, it became clear that the tension between Guram and Demna continues.
In the face of adversity, Paris’s young designers carve a path
Emerging brands drew a lot of attention this season. Editors turned up en masse to the shows of Duran Lantink, Marie Adam-Leenaerdt, Niccolò Pasqualetti and Zomer, all of whom appeared on the schedule for the second time alongside burgeoning labels like Rokh and Ottolinger.
Young Irish designer Róisín Pierce, who recently joined the Dover Street Market Paris incubator, presented her intricate demi-couture in the Irish embassy on Friday morning. LVMH Prize semi-finalist and Swedish designer Hodakova held an off-schedule show on Sunday morning featuring subverted officewear, with a briefcase that turned into a pinafore before the audience’s eyes. Abra, who previously worked with Jonathan Anderson on Loewe’s viral cracked egg and balloon shoes, staged an off-schedule ready-to-wear show on Friday featuring his signature spiky footwear and floor-skimming latex bags.
“The attention to young designers has gone crescendo over the years,” says Serge Carreira, director of emerging brands initiative at the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. “The LVMH Prize really helped highlight the young designers, and the industry follows the careers of the Prize alumni.”
Sophie Brocart, Patou CEO and LVMH Prize mentor, says: “There is a growing public interest and support towards the emerging designers, and we see it with the success of the LVMH Prize, but on the other side, the wholesale channel these designers need to sell to develop their business is in turmoil and cannot support the newcomers as much as before.”
A famous alumnus, Simon Porte Jacquemus, received the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres on 2 March from the hands of Anna Wintour. In his speech, he thanked the press for their kindness towards him over the years and encouraged editors to do the same with the younger generation: “Look at the young people, go to their fashion shows, tell them it’s great, they need it, be patient, give them time to grow, but be there,” he told the audience, which included Delphine Arnault, Laetitia Casta and Carine Roitfeld.
The designer also thanked the stores “that have supported me, and even hired me — I am thinking of Adrian Joffe — and the stores that made me dream”. The president of Comme des Garçons International and CEO of Dover Street Market gave Jacquemus a job as a sales assistant at the Comme des Garçons Paris shop to finance his brand. (Speaking of Dover Street Market, the much-anticipated opening of the Paris store is slated for this spring.)
Fashion is entertainment, shows are the stage
The convergence between fashion and entertainment reached a new peak when LVMH announced, right in the middle of fashion month, the launch of 22 Montaigne Entertainment, a platform “to accelerate its 75 maisons’ marketing efforts into films, TV and audio formats”. (This came after the Pinault family’s holding company Artémis acquired talent agency CAA.)
This season was further evidence of the crossovers. On PFW’s first day, Dior hosted a private screening of The New Look, a series produced by Apple TV on the story of founder Christian Dior; leading stars Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche were in attendance. Chanel also flexed its ties to cinema at its show, which opened with a short film starring Brad Pitt and Penélope Cruz. On giant screens in the centre of the runway, the piece was a short remake of Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman and was directed by Inez and Vinoodh. Chanel has been a partner of the Deauville American Film Festival since 2019.
Andreas Kronthaler’s latest show for Vivienne Westwood was inspired by history and featured a performance from folk act Simon Mayer’s Sons of Sissy. While initially perplexed at the mouth clicking, axe-wielding and bum slapping, by the end, showgoers were cheering. “When the collection started to take shape, and we had decided the venue, I was sure to ask them to perform,” Kronthaler says. “I thought it would all work together and make a great picture. A picture that moves. It’s definitely become a real talking point, even for those watching from home.”
On Sunday night, Mugler staged a large-scale theatrical show in Lycée Carnot, where models appeared from shadows as curtains gradually fell in the space. In classic Mugler style, each model interacted with the many drones and cameras to create a high-impact video for audiences at home. Just before creative director Casey Cadwallader took his bow, the final curtain fell to reveal backstage, where the full atelier team waved at the audience.
Right after Mugler, electronic musician Arca held the party of the season. It was night three of her residency at Bourse de Commerce, the Pinault collection. After two nights of piano concerts, Arca put on a club night featuring a DJ set from Björk, wearing Rick Owens straight from the AW24 runway. Owens and Michèle Lamy were in attendance, dancing alongside movement director Pat Boguslawski as well as a host of editors and influencers.
Trends to know: Country core, styling twists and max volume
Perhaps we’ve said goodbye to quiet luxury. But designers are looking to the outdoor pursuits of the wealthy this season as countrycore takes hold. Fairisle knits, Barbour jacket-inspired skirts, and Celtic music made their mark at Hodakova, while Vivienne Westwood’s aforementioned folky show was complete with Sam Smith dressed in tartan. There were also contrasting checked knits at Yohji Yamamoto (a contrast from its usual monochrome), clashing plaids at Rabanne, and graphics of country scenes at Loewe.
La Samaritaine’s Dartigues praises the many “styling twists” this season, all the rich layering and numerous accessories, notably at Rabanne, Isabel Marant and Chloé (Marie-Amélie Sauvé, Emmanuelle Alt and Élodie David Touboul were behind the styling at Rabanne, Isabel Marant and Chloé, respectively). “I keep looking at my photos and zooming in to see all the details, which is very nice when you’re a buyer,” Dartigues says. One styling trend that has been cause for much debate this season was the bare breasts seen at Saint Laurent and elsewhere. As we’ve seen across fashion month, tinsel accents are a fun trend for AW24, from gold tinsel-trimmed denim at Undercover to tinsel collars and shoulder pads at Zomer.
Voluminous outerwear and knits are a key trend of the season. Alongside bold showings from Comme des Garçons and its affiliated brands Junya Watanabe and Noir Kei Ninomiya, who always play with volume, other labels offered more everyday options. “We love this idea of taking up space with your outerwear — bold must-have silhouettes at Sacai and an exaggerated A-line at The Row,” says Nordstrom’s De Sole. “Textured knitwear offered a sense of cosy and unexpected creativity on the runways — from Stella McCartney’s slouchy loop knits to McQueen’s exaggerated neck knits, to Sacai’s coherence green knit jacket. Fall’s knits are anything but classic.”
Above everything else, Paris demonstrated once again its leadership this season. Asked if there are any risks or limits to this position, Pascal Morand, executive president of Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, said: “The biggest danger would be to rest on our laurels.”
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