This season, Iris van Herpen took a dive into the aquatic world and emerged with the fascinating forms of deep-sea hydrozoa organisms. Not that you’d need to be a marine biologist to appreciate her otherworldly designs, which floated through the runway with billowing folds and delicate organza layers.
Guo Pei took couture to icy heights with her Himalayas-inspired collection. The Chinese designer brought an Asian flavour to Paris Fashion Week with antique Japanese obi belts and embroidered Buddhist motifs, peeking out beneath mountains of tulle snow.
At Givenchy, Clare Waight Keller dedicated her collection to love, specifically the one shared between English novelists Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. Against a Philip Glass score played by musicians suspended in mid-air, models walked down the runway in ruffled gowns and large cloche hats inspired by the florals of Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst Castle Garden.
Giambattista Valli was feeling nostalgic: his collection drew from photographs of style icons past, like Marella Agnelli, Lee Radziwill and Jackie Onassis, while its lookbook echoed the photos of Richard Avedon and Irving Penn. But he wasn’t stuck on old traditions. Valli presented his designs in a public exhibition, not a private runway show, to make haute couture accessible to all.
Pierpaolo Piccioli saw no need for a theme for his couture collection. Instead, he focused on fabrics that were beautiful enough to tell a story. And they did, in the form of flowing, romantic gowns with feathers and embroideries that have now become Valentino’s signature.
You can attribute the haphazard look of John Galliano’s latest collection to two things: the upcycled fabrics, which were sourced from various thrift shops; and a pair of scissors, with which Galliano diced and sliced those fabrics to create his collage-y collection of oversized coats and perforated dresses. Trypophobes, look away.
Viktor and Rolf also took an upcycling approach for their collection, using leftover swatches from fabric suppliers. Because of the sizes of those swatches, the designers had to get crafty. The result? Eclectic patchwork dresses that stitched together haute couture with arts and crafts.
Virginie Viard’s second couture outing for Chanel revolved around Gabrielle Chanel herself. More specifically, the founder’s days of youth spent in a convent. This season’s Chanel look was part school-girl chic (see the peter pan collars, prim and proper sweater and skirt sets, and ankle socks) and part matronly governess (sweeping dresses with high necklines).
Maria Grazia Chiuri’s feminist fixation led her to the strong-willed female archetypes of Greek mythology this season. Dior’s Greek goddesses and warriors were clad in gold garments, painstakingly crafted by braiding, fringing and beading fine metallic thread.
The couture shows are done and dusted, and Paris Fashion Week has come to a close.
It was an eventful one: Jean-Paul Gaultier held a triumphant celebration of his 50-year fashion career for his final runway show, days after Balenciaga announced that it would return to couture next season for the first time since 1968.
None of that overshadowed the imaginative collections unveiled by Paris’s finest couture maisons, though. Across the shows, there was a fascination of the divine (see Dior’s Greek goddesses), an eco-minded interest in upcycling (Maison Margiela, Viktor & Rolf) and an appreciation of nature in all its beauty (Chanel, Givenchy, Iris van Herpen).
Scroll through the gallery to see the most beautiful, out-of-this-world couture designs that graced this year’s Paris Fashion Week.
