Gossip is always currency during fashion week, but this season in Paris insider whisperings hit fever pitch.
Before the spring/summer 25 shows began, designer musical chairs were on everyone’s lips. There were debuts (notably, Alessandro Michele’s Valentino show), recent announcements (Sarah Burton will be going to Givenchy) and supposedly imminent news (is Pierpaolo Piccioli going to Fendi? It depends who you spoke to last). All of it was over-analysed over countless martinis in the dark lair that is the Hotel Costes bar.
Any conversations about industry powerhouses included Jonathan Anderson, the jewel in LVMH’s crown and the man who has transformed Spanish label Loewe into a billion-pound behemoth. This season marked his decade anniversary at the house, which rather than overtly celebrate, he decided to approach with stylish restraint.
Ironically, in spite of the chatter around him, his SS25 season attempted to answer the question: what happens when one takes all the noise away? He presented his vision in the round, in a bleached white space across the moat at the Château de Vincennes. In the centre stood a tiny, centrally placed Tracey Emin bird sculpture, and around it Anderson proved, again, that the formula he has crafted over 10 years at the company is exceptionally efficient and a model for other leading brands.
He is forensic in his approach. Take this season’s suits, with their morphed, oversize sleeve-jackets and trousers that ballooned on the legs and came in chilly stone, black and navy. “They are actually a weird accomplishment, because I don’t think Loewe has been very good at tailoring for a long time,” he said after the show. “We have come up with a kind of signature. How do you make the suit your own? It’s about tweaking the attitude.” It was floaty, sculptural gowns that made the most impact on the runway, however, as Anderson gave his off-kilter treatment to the staid spring summer floral dress. Impressionist flowers were printed on delicate silks and, using a thin chain-weight system, bulged out in various directions.
The intention was to reduce American pre-war, crinoline gowns to “a thread line”. They will be a red carpet hit — proven by The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri who wore one the following night to Business of Fashion’s lavish gala at the Shangri-La, where she explained they are light as a feather to wear (if slightly impractical for tight spaces). A wearable note: band-tees with Bach, Mozart and Van Gogh’s sunflowers were great, too. His were made of feathers, but yours can be from Uniqlo next spring.
A surprise came later from another Irish designer, Seán McGirr, at McQueen. While his debut in February was met with widespread critique, Saturday’s show felt like a defiant step up. At the grand École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, an impressive scene to behold. Tiles were smashed to reveal a silver, steel-plate runway dug out, trench style, through the centre of the hall. It made for a dramatic backdrop for a collection which, in true McQueen style, looked to the Celtic figure of the banshee for inspiration (something the late Lee McQueen did for his own autumn/winter 1994 collection). So, points for originality — not loads, although he explains: “It’s also a story that I grew up with, so feels deeply personal to me, something I remember my mother talking about in Ireland, describing the cry of this solitary, foreboding figure.”
And certainly kudos is deserved for a far more elevated set of looks, which opened with Elizabethan ruff collars and broad tailored jackets which were twisted to look clutched, and ended in dramatic fashion: a crystal banshee figure, covered face-to-toe in georgette embroidered with lashings of chains and fine silver bullion. The key takeaway was to give up fearing classic Nineties McQueen style now. You have seven months to track down a sparkly, gold blazer.
Other London brands achieving decadent splashes included Victoria Beckham, always one to put on a show — however, this season it felt extra efforts had been made. Likely because the camera crews for her upcoming Netflix documentary were on hand. A vast tent had been put up at the Château de Bagatelle. With fairy lights draped overhead, and sitting pinned in among towering buildings, it felt like a Saltburn-style bash. She moved her collection into a conversation about “formality and nakedness”, read show notes, which meant a more risqué selection than one might expect from VB. Sculptural, wrapped tops looked vacuum-packed on the body and were moulded into stiff offshoots, while leotards were cut high on the hips (and were popular across the board this season, consider pairing with jeans come warmer months) while suits had a third slashed off them.
Stella McCartney helped tie up the season with a Monday morning show, before Coperni took the fashion set out to Disneyland. McCartney took the moment, which played out with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop, as an opportunity to continue her mission, calling to reduce environmental destruction. Caps on seats read, “About F***ing Time!”, and on the catwalk, ready-to-wear designs were innovated with 91 per cent conscious materials (think bags made from apple waste, fungi and sugar cane derivatives). A manifesto read by Helen Mirren began proceedings, big boxy blazers proved the office siren look is going nowhere — keep suiting up — but it was eye-catching moments including puffball mini dresses and tops in turquoise and beige, which she describes as “cloud knits”, that put smiles on faces.
And there were no frowns at Christian Louboutin’s dazzling display of campness, either, when he took over the vast art deco Piscine Molitor and kitted out the French Olympic artistic swimming team in his new “Miss Z” red-bottom shoes for a show quite unlike the others this season. As “firemen” stripped on poles, and synchronised swimmers twisted about in heels, everyone forgot themselves for a moment.
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Outside in the rain, though, it was back to usual service. “Well, I heard John Galliano is going to Chanel,” someone mooed. “Really!?” came the scream back.
