While for many people the question of being dressed boils down to whether or not a pair of trousers is on the right way round or a matching pair of socks has been mustered from the laundry, for Victoria Beckham, the notion of being in a state of dress, or undress, is much less quotidian. She proved as much with her latest collection, a musing on the act of dressing, which she showed in a decidedly autumnal Paris on Friday night.
The collection made for a neat framing for the launch of her new scent. “I think that using this as an opportunity to launch our fourth fragrance, it was about our relationship with our skin, about how we dress ourselves, in our wardrobes,” she said to a small scrum of gathered press backstage. “This time it was about taking the clothes off.”
But that is not to say the clothes weren’t worth wearing. Tailoring took centre stage. But even in tailored trousers, skin was left bare via slashes that ran from upper sartorius muscle to mid-shin.
Waistbands were folded over “in the manner one would spontaneously shorten a trouser”, according to the press release. Tailored jackets appeared with an arm of fabric missing, as if someone had taken a pair of scissors to one side of them, albeit someone with tailoring clout. Nudity was hinted at, via slinky bias-cut dresses, such as an Atonement-green one worn by the model Gigi Hadid, and sheer designs. Bustier dresses and tops in pretty floral print were given strength, crafted from resin and jutting gently from models’ bodies like rigid second skins.
This is a big year for the brand. Having lost money for several years, it has moved into profit since the launch of beauty ranges in 2019. The idea is to go beyond simply fashion and into those things that make a business a “fashion house”. Moving her show from London to Paris in 2022 was an attempt to elevate the brand, and elevate it she has.
Asked for impressions on the collection backstage, a beaming David Beckham replied: “Gorgeous. No words, other than gorgeous. She gets bigger and better every year, but in the most elegant way.”
Victoria Beckham has come a long way since debuting her first collection – just 10 dresses – to a room of sceptical fashion editors in New York in 2008. In the years since, her designs have been worn by the Duchess of Sussex, Kendall Jenner and Lady Gaga.
Front-row guests in the past have included Pamela Anderson and Kim Kardashian, and this show saw the whole Beckham family turn out, as well as actor Sofía Vergara, sitting next to a chilly-looking Anna Wintour, who was making the most of the blankets provided.
The show’s location against a backdrop of uplit oak trees and the neoclassical-style Château de Bagatelle – with Succession-esque piano music playing before the show –made for an event that even the damp couldn’t dampen.
But Beckham seemed keen not to let the setting and the success carry her away. “Everything we do is really rooted in a reality,” she said backstage. “Every single garment, however much we style it and elevate it on the catwalk, every single item goes into production … It’s never just about creating a silhouette. These clothes are very wearable.”
Of course, who would wear such elevated designs, for what and where remains a lingering question. But there is no doubt that Beckham means business.
The question of being dressed and undressed also erupted, albeit in very different ways, on to the catwalk at the show of subversive label Vetements, which took place in a concrete lair underneath a shopping centre in the French capital earlier in the day.
The brand, which has historically toyed with, flipped the bird at and repackaged and resold late-stage capitalism, put on a chaotic, high-energy show. While outside there was a mound of clothes against which attendees posed for pictures, inside there were deconstructed clothes, worn askew, that still seemed to have their labels and security tags on them. T-shirts were emblazoned with the logo of Monster energy drink, the Microsoft apple and the Eiffel Tower, which also appeared upturned as the heel of stilettos. Other models had done away with shoes altogether, wearing only socks with “left” and “right” reminders sewn into the feet.
The American rapper Travis Scott opened the show in biker-style leathers, Heidi Klum wore a T-shirt that read “Polizei”, there were older models and one visibly pregnant model, and supermodel Gigi Hadid wore a hyperbolically mini dress made from DHL-branded gaffa tape – a nod to the DHL T-shirt that became one of the biggest fashion stories of 2016 when Vetements, then under the creative directorship of Demna Gvasalia and now under his brother, Guram, sent it down the catwalk.
