As Paris Men’s Fashion Week drew to a close on Sunday, January 21, luxury powerhouses turned things up a notch.
Haute Couture Week, commencing the following Monday, drew celebrities to the metropolis, eager to discover what the calendar’s technical visionaries had up their sleeves this season. Spoiler: it featured robot babies, whimsical sailor hats, and undulating gowns spun from a single strand of wool.
Widely recognized as the apogee of fashion, Haute Couture Week is reserved for what the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode considers the crème de la crème of garment making. While the ready-to-wear calendar showcases promising talent and emerging disruptors presenting their commercial work, the couture circuit is when fashion’s most elite cadre flaunt their skills and savoir-faire.
Jing Daily rounds up the standout moments of the week below.
Alaïa#
Whereas some may describe quiet luxury as Kendall Roy’s Loro Piana cap in Succession or a $13,000 cashmere coat from The Row, for Pieter Mulier, nothing screams quiet luxury more than the act of making something spectacular out of almost nothing.
For Azzedine Alaïa’s Spring 2024 couture collection, the creative director set himself the challenge of using one singular yarn of merino wool to create his 43-piece runway. The result was a compelling display of craftsmanship.
Models floated through the mirror-paneled boutique on Rue de Marignan — some in dresses made from wool woven so thin it bore resemblance to angel hair spaghetti, others in animal prints and jumbo pom-pom cuffs.
“Reduced, reduced, reduced,” Mulier repeated in a post-show video that was published on Instagram. Ironically, it was the absence of gimmicks, spectacles, and material overload that propelled Mulier’s presentation to the forefront of online conversation, proving that, in 2024, less really is more.
Schiaparelli#
Robot babies. 3D exoskeletons. Dresses made from motherboards. Schiaparelli’s retro-tech-meets-alien collection flooded social media platforms before the show was even over — a buzz that felt strikingly similar to last year’s animal head hysteria (minus the controversy).
This season, creative director Daniel Roseberry set the taxidermies aside to delve deeper into life after the turn of the century. Surrealism was once again at play — as it always is at Schiaparelli — with space suit-esque jackets, extraterrestrial proportions, and even a life-size robot baby holding hands with model Maggie Maurer.
The designer also appeared to take cues from Alexander McQueen's playbook. In one of the gowns, which extended over the model's face and featured Elsa Schiaparelli’s hallmark keyhole insignia, a razor-clam shell material was artfully manipulated to resemble lightweight feathers.
Another dress, aptly named “The Mother,” was crafted from piles of pre-2007 tech, including CDs, mobile phones, and calculators — prehistoric relics now considered obsolete in today’s age of AI and the iPhone.
Simone Rocha for Jean Paul Gaultier#
After Jean Paul Gaultier departed from his namesake label in 2020, the house of Jean Paul Gaultier has evolved into a creative playground for some of the industry’s most revered designers, including Haider Ackermann, Olivier Rousteing, and Julien Dossena, to reimagine the atelier’s legacy through their own stylistic lenses.
In September 2023, it was announced that the next guest couturier spot would be filled by Irish designer Simone Rocha, who, following months of teasing via her Instagram, brought her vision to life in Gaultier’s headquarters on January 24.
A designer who has become synonymous with the whimsical melancholy of femininity, Rocha fused her signature style with Gaultier’s provocative, sex-infused language. Archival references were on full display: Gaultier’s famed breton striped marinières and sailor hats were laced with ribbon, curved rose horns (a reference to Gaultier’s conical bra) protruded from the bust of slip dresses, and pannier dresses were crafted using crocheted Irish lace and sheer organza.
Robert Wun#
Hong Kong-born designer Robert Wun brought his sleep paralysis demon onto the runway this season in the form of eerily ominous creatures affixed to models’ shoulders (alongside Schiaparelli, insentient beings seemed to be a running theme this year).
Horror has become a central element in Wun’s work over the years. Continuing his cruor narrative from last season, Wun soaked bridal gowns and veils in red crystals to create the impression of blood and hung beaded crystal and pearl rain droplets from umbrella hats.
This Haute Couture circuit saw a handful of designers look to extraterrestrials as a significant point of reference. Wun’s interpretation appeared in the form of androidian helmets, as well as more literal apparitions, including prosthetic hands and fingers of unfamiliar entities wrapped around models’ faces.
Maison Margiela#
Capping off the week, John Galliano’s Maison Margiela was one for the history books. Guests were ushered into an intimate tavern beneath Pont Alexandre III, where they were welcomed with an opening sequence performed by model Leon Dame.
The Artisanal Collection, a poetic and raw response to the sterile beauty standards and homogeneity in fashion today, unfolded through the theatrical lens of freakish night riders, cabaret performers, and courtesans.
References to Galliano’s early days at Margiela and his work at Dior were on full display. There were disheveled gauze skirts and crinolines, padded hips, and corsets wrenched so tight they created aggressive, contorted proportions. Yet, even still, the runway featured the most diverse cast seen across the past month (and arguably the past year), with English actress and muse Gwendoline Christie closing the show as an Edwardian-esque porcelain doll.
The overarching consensus following Margiela’s finale? Fashion is back.