Paris Fashion Week: ask for the program!

This is a busy schedule! One hundred and six brands are on the calendar for Women’s Fashion Week fall-winter 2023-2024, which will be held from February 27 to March 7 in Paris. Historic houses making a comeback, first collections by young designers, haute couture’s incursion into ready-to-wear… A brief overview of the festivities.

Those who had abandoned the Parisian calendar

Established each season by the Fédération de la haute couture et de la mode, the official calendar evolves according to the desires of the designers and the places available. This season marks the return of several labels that had chosen to move away from it. Until March 2020, British label Alexander McQueen was a regular in Paris. After a forced break due to the pandemic, the brand had returned to the podium in 2022, off schedule, in London and then in New York. McQueen’s artistic director, Sarah Burton, therefore returns to Paris on Saturday March 4, at 6:30 p.m.

At Paco Rabanne, designer Julien Dossena, who paraded outside the calendar, will also be back on 1^er March. Will a tribute to the founder of the brand, who died on February 3, be on the program? Finally, Glenn Martens is joining the women’s calendar this season for his label Y/Project, which previously paraded during the men’s collections. To be discovered on March 7.

Heritage parades

Surprise of this calendar: the return of the Pierre Cardin house. Died in December 2020, the legendary designer used to organize his parades outside the official calendar. Since his death, his great-nephew, Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, has taken over the reins of the company and its creation. He will present his vision of the brand through a parade on March 5, in the historic boutique on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, inaugurated in 1966.

Another long-awaited parade from a heritage brand: the first Vivienne Westwood collection after the designer’s death in December 2022. Her husband and long-time collaborator, designer Andreas Kronthaler, already at the head of the collections that parade – and which wear the name of “Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood” since autumn-winter 2016-2017 – will present his new score on Saturday 4 March.

Long-awaited young shoots

This season of Parisian collections will also be an opportunity to discover the visions of two designers recently appointed to head houses. Harris Reed, a 26-year-old Englishman, will indeed unveil his first collection for Nina Ricci. Appointed to this position in September 2022, he took over from the duo Rushemy Botter and Lisi Herrebrugh, who had held the position since 2018. A graduate of Central Saint Martins School in London, the young man with a flamboyant universe claims a fashion not gendered. To discover on Friday March 3rd.

The next day, it will be the turn of Ludovic de Saint Sernin to make his debut for the Belgian label Ann Demeulemeester. At 31, the young man is a regular at parades under his own brand, launched in 2017. After passing through the Royal Academy of Antwerp, the Parisian also plays with the codes of the genre, not hesitating to parade boys in miniskirts.

Finally, Arthur Avellano will be responsible for closing this Fashion Week on March 7, the day of the general strike. A graduate of the Atelier Chardon Savard, the Toulousain will present his brand for the first time as part of the women’s calendar. Inaugurated in 2016, soberly named Avellano, it has made latex its favorite material.

Martine Sitbon is making a comeback

It is with a new label, Rev, that Martine Sitbon is making her big comeback. This new setting will be an opportunity for her to delve into her archives to extract a contemporary version. She joined forces for this project with brothers Laurent and Arik Bitton, founders of the Iro brand, which they sold in 2019.

With her romantic universe tinged with rock references, Martine Sitbon established herself as an emblematic figure of Parisian fashion in the 1980s and 1990s, first through her eponymous label (1986-2004), then the Rue du Mail label. , which closed its doors in 2013. She was also artistic director of the Chloé house between 1987 and 1992. The first version of Rev, who is based in Milan, will be presented during this week of the Parisian collections.

Haute couture goes ready-to-wear

The Schiaparelli house is a regular on the haute couture calendar. An appellation that meets very specific criteria and concerns only a handful of labels: the clothes must be made to measure and by hand, in so-called “fuzzy” or “tailor” workshops and bringing together at least twenty craftsmen, collections must include at least twenty-five models… This season, the brand is also making a foray into the ready-to-wear calendar, on March 7th. In January, the haute couture line had had its small effect: the resin and fake fur lion’s or wolf’s heads more real than life, affixed to spectacular dresses designed by Daniel Roseberry, had sparked the ire of defenders of the animal cause, including seeing the apology of trophy hunting. Will the house also strike people’s minds with the simpler ready-to-wear clothes?