So begins Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024 – the closing leg of men’s fashion month, which arrives in the French capital this week. Starting with Pharrell Williams’ anticipated sophomore ready-to-wear show for Louis Vuitton – an ode to the American West and its distinct dress codes – the week continues with Givenchy’s first show since the departure of Matthew M Williams (the collection will be designed by the in-house team), another Paris outing for British designer Grace Wales Bonner, and an intimate show from Rick Owens held at his Paris home.
Completing the line-up will be a no-doubt intriguing collection from Jonathan Anderson at Loewe, Kim Jones’ latest Dior Men’s outing, and shows from Paul Smith, Comme des Garçons, Valentino and Hermès, alongside a roster of emerging names.
Here, in our ongoing report, is the very best of Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024, as it happens.
The best of Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024
Homme Plissé Issey Miyake
Homme Plissé Issey Miyake’s latest collection was born from a collaboration with the polymathic French artist and designer Ronan Bouroullec. Here, the design team looked towards his drawings – colourful abstract forms which he draws each morning using a Japanese felt tip brush – which in the collection were used as adornment across the brand’s pleated separates, or informing the collection’s freewheeling mood, which this season had an improvisational air (a series of colourful scarves, for example, were draped around the model's bodies to recall Bouroullec’s work).
As such, the collection was titled ‘Immersed in the Wilds of Creativity’ and was an attempt to explore the translation of creative materials (here, Bouroullec’s oeuvre) into clothing. It made for a liberated mood, seeing beautifully layered silhouettes – many of which had the feeling of having been wrapped or loosely twisted around the body – meet moments of artistic flourish, like a trio of models who carried cushions decorated with motifs reminiscent of Bouroullec’s work in their hands.
Amiri
A suitably dramatic set – enormous velvet curtains, an expanse of monogrammed carpet – provided the backdrop for Mike Amiri’s latest collection, which the American designer described as an ode to the Hollywood epic. Inspired by the nostalgic glamour of his home town of Los Angeles, louche tailoring was a focus – whether elongated satin blazers, jacquard evening jackets, or suiting with a loose, pyjama cut – which was inspired at once by Old Hollywood dress codes and the undone glamour of the 1990s. Befitting the inspiration, the shimmer of crystals ran throughout the expansive collection, whether as stacked up brooches adorning the lapels of jackets or twinkling across undone shirts and beanie hats.
Rick Owens
Rick Owens opened the door to his Parisian home on Paris’ Place du Palais Bourbon to host his latest menswear show, titled ’Porterville’ (a reference to the Californian city where the designer was born and grew up). Held amid the vast concrete rooms, sparsely decorated with Owens’ monolithic furniture, he chose the intimate location – a stark opposition to his usual shows held on the forecourt of the Palais de Tokyo – as a sign of ‘respectful restraint’ in response to world turbulence (recent seasons have seen him grappling with creation during times of war and crisis).
Here, the balm was community, inviting Steven from Fecal Matter and Gena Marvin – both known for their strange, otherworldly looks – to walk the runway, while collaborating with London-based designer Straytukay on inflatable footwear and rubber-wear specialist Matisse di Maggio on pieces crafted from recycled tires. A mood of envelopment and solace ran throughout, whether enormous shaggy forms which wrapped around the body in a suggestion of protection or knitted all-in-ones were crafted in soft alpaca, cashmere and merino.
Wales Bonner
British designer Grace Wales Bonner has long riffed on the hallmarks of American collegiate style in her oeuvre. She returned to them this season, with a typically poetic show held in Paris’ Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Howard University, a storied Black institution in Washington D.C. (alumni have included Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison) was at the collection’s centre: ‘a celebration of [its] shining lineage’, ‘where depictions of homecoming resound: hip-hop performances, readings from the poets, international gatherings on the green’. In this spirit, a live performance came from musician Yasiin Bey.
The collection itself clashed the college uniform – from Howard Crew-adorned sweaters to monogrammed varsity and baseball jackets – with moments of elegance and craft, from crocheted mirrors across tailoring (created by hand in India) to beads, pearls and amethysts adorning jewellery and brooches, which suggested a ceremonial flourish. Ceremonial too was a beautiful black tuxedo – perhaps recalling the moment of graduation – which the designer created alongside Savile Row tailors Anderson and Sheppard. The mood of refinement continued to her latest Adidas Originals collaboration, which comprised miniature handbags and versions of the Superstar sneaker in crocodile-embossed leather.
Givenchy
The house’s historic haute couture salon in Hôtel de Caraman on Paris’ Avenue Georges provided the setting for Givenchy’s first runway show since the departure of American designer Matthew M Williams late last year. Befitting the location – in which Hubert de Givenchy worked for 36 years – the show transpired like a traditional salon presentation, with guests sitting around tables in the space’s various white-walled rooms (madeleines, truffle sandwiches and champagne completed the mood of refinement). Designed this season by an in-house team (the new creative director is yet to be announced), the press notes said the collection began with a consideration of ‘gentlemanliness’ inspired by Mr. Givenchy and his dress codes: ‘the duality of his public and personal wardrobes: a sartorial formality energised by an inimitable off-duty sense for nonchalance, flamboyance and seduction’.
It made for an eclectic offering. There were cat-adorned vest tops and fronds of synthetic hair, which crept out from under tailored jackets or adorned dramatic overcoats, ladylike silk headscarves (based on a style from the archive), louche, unbuttoned silk scarves, layers of knitwear, and sculptural hats. Tailoring, of course, ran throughout, in various iterations – some sliced away along the sleeves, others playing on classic eveningwear – though it was largely double-breasted and narrow in silhouette. At the end of the show, no one came out to take the final bow. Who will do so come next season, remains to be seen.
Lemaire
Lemaire’s latest show was staged in the brand’s airy, white-walled headquarters in Paris’ Place des Vosges. Warm herbal cocktails were served in the covered courtyard before the show – a balm to the day’s cold, drizzly weather – adding to the intimate feel of the presentation, which suggested an invitation into the brand’s serene inner sanctum. As such, the clothing itself, which largely evolves season on season rather than any more dramatic shifts, continued to hone the brand’s signature look, one of discreet, uncomplicated elegance (one already underscored by the staff at the show, chicly dressed in varying tones of Lemaire ecru and off-white).
Christophe Lemaire, who runs the eponymous label with Sarah-Linh Tran, noted that he felt like now was the right time to invite people into this space, which comprises the brand’s entire operation, including the atelier and workshop. As such, they talked about the collection as capturing the solace of home: enveloping, layered looks which took their cue from dance attire in the way pieces caressed the body like ‘a second skin’. Others subverted the domestic for wear out of doors, like elegant ‘in-and-out pyjamas’ or outerwear which recalled the proportions of a bathrobe.
Louis Vuitton
It was out to Paris’ Bois de Boulogne for Pharrell Williams’ sophomore ready-to-wear show for Louis Vuitton. This follows his debut last summer in Paris, and a subsequent pre-fall collection, where the designer had erected an enormous box in the shadow of Frank Gehry’s sweeping Fondation Louis Vuitton. Inside the A/W 2024 show venue, vast projections lined the walls depicting the rocky plains of the United States, providing a hint of what was to come (the invitation, an LV-branded cowboy hat and an engraved harmonica, provided another). Here was Williams’ ode to that most American of archetypes: the cowboy, albeit filtered through the Parisian sensibilities of Louis Vuitton (‘Paris to VA’, in reference to his home state, is a continuing motif in his tenure so far). So, there were denim chaps and cowboy hats, Western-style shirts with frilled yolks and pearl-and-sequin adornment, and riffs on workwear, from a tailored take on the traditional double-kneed carpenter’s pant to a footwear collaboration with Timberland. Requisite cowboy hats completed the look, while enormous gilded Louis Vuitton trunks were wheeled along the runway on wooden frontier carriages.
Before the show, Williams noted that part of the reason for this collection was to provide a more expansive vision of the cowboy trope (Black and Native American cowboys were among some of the first cowboys in the United States, though they have been largely excluded from contemporary depictions of the era). As such, the collection contained a ’creative exchange’ with artists from the Dakota and Lakota nations, who assisted with Williams’ vision for the collection, including a version of the house’s ’Speedy’ bag, which was embroidered with a Dakota Flower motif, or ’Keepalls’ which featured designs reminiscent to those found on ‘parfleche’, stretched buffalo hides which were historically decorated by Native American communities. To close the show, powwow group Native Voices of Resistance – clad in designs conceived by Dee Jay Two Bears of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe – performed as a gentle flurry of snow fell from the ceiling, the projected desert on the walls now dusted white. It made for a show that spoke of Williams’ vast, energetic vision for Louis Vuitton – all that was left to wonder is where the designer will take his odyssey next.
Stay tuned for more from Paris Fashion Week Men’s A/W 2024
