Four weeks of shows from New York through Paris reveals a season balanced between restraint and exuberance, structure and softness, black severity and colourful play. Fashion speaks in opposites.
Prada opened the season with fifteen models in rapid succession. Quick changes through clever layering made each silhouette shift. ‘As a woman, your life is layered,’ said Miuccia Prada. ‘Each day demands a richness of identities within yourself.’ Garments operated in conversation. An anorak over a cocktail dress. An organza skirt removed to expose bloomers. This was architecture.
Black as restraint
Black dominated. Three-quarters of Fendi’s collection. Vast sections of Saint Laurent. Comme des Garçons presented almost entirely in black; a brief interlude in pink. At Fendi, Maria Grazia Chiuri explained that the palette allowed freedom in texture. Black lace. Black silk. Black faux fur so lustrous it absorbed light entirely. In luxury fashion, purity comes through singularity.
Against this came textural exuberance. Faux fur and shearling appeared everywhere. Louise Trotter’s bold, shaggy silhouettes at Bottega Veneta; shearling trimmed at Loewe with the precision of poodle grooming. Jonathan Anderson called it a ‘Muppets mood.’ Tactile. Joyful. Without apology. Fashion chose both seriousness and play.
The slip dress returns to the runway, reimagined entirely. Rendered in rubber at Loewe, coated in silicone at Saint Laurent. Delicacy transformed into force.
Margaux DelacroixAt Loewe, nighties were recreated in 3D-printed rubber in vivid primary hues. At Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello constructed slip silhouettes from sheer lace coated in silicone. ‘Structure to the traditionally delicate material,’ he said. ‘Fragility becoming force.’ The vulnerable garment had been weaponised, made architectural. No longer something worn beneath; something declared.
Saint Laurent opened its show with eight dark-coloured suits in succession. Sloped shoulders. Narrowed waistlines. Each refusing the authority of the traditional power silhouette. Anthony Vaccarello spoke of ‘a quiet and fluid conversation between the parameters of femininity and masculinity.’ An insouciant shrug. Sarah Burton at Givenchy reunited with her tailoring team from Alexander McQueen, bringing new sharpness to her suiting. The lapels were cut in, the waistlines sculpted. Nothing constrictive. The suit, long the emblem of conformity, had learned to bend.
The season reveals fashion no longer choosing sides. Opposing impulses; restraint and expression, structure and softness, the conceptual and the sensual; coexist. The shows have ended. Translation into everyday dress begins.