Haute Couture Fashion Week - When the Pandemic Finally Impacts Couture’s Fantasy.
Hello and welcome to the 38th issue of moderated, a newsletter created to dive into insights and phenomenons of the Fashion Industry. It also has a curation and summary of the most talked about last week’s events of the industry, offering further readings for more details.
If you are new here, welcome! I hope I can somehow help you to keep up with the fast-paced Fashion Industry.
Also, subscribe to receive a weekly issue by e-mail…
In this week’s moderated, I made a review of the first Haute Couture Fashion Week of 2021, bringing my highlights and giving opinions about each Maison.
But before jumping into the main article, check the last week’s recap of the Fashion Industry.
Last Week’s Recap
Myanmar Coup May Impact Footwear Companies in the US
The coup that happened in Myanmar may worsen the already unenthusiastic interest of US and Western companies in trading with the country. According to analysts, some large companies may decide to pull out of the country due to the human rights discussion the coup is raising. Also, the coup would exacerbate strains in the US-Myanmar ties following sanctions defined by Washington in December 2019, complicating even more trade relations.
The total trade between the US and Myanmar amounted to over US$1.3 billion in 2020, according to the US Census Bureau data. 41.4% of this trade between the two countries is composed of apparel and footwear, followed by luggage, which accounts for around 30%, said Panjiva, the supply chain research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Amid the political instability of the country, it is likely that large companies that import from Myanmar, such as Samsonite and Adidas, will consider relocating their supply chain. H&M stated that they are monitoring the situation and in constant contact with suppliers. But the company explained it has no immediate plans to change its sourcing strategy.
Check this article from CNN to understand better the coup in Myanmar.
Then this other from BOF to know more about the coup’s impact on trade between the US And Myanmar.
…
Reddit Users Fuel Silver Prices and Swimwear Stocks
Reddit users united to buy GameStop stocks and skyrocketed its share prices, affecting many hedge funds that were shorting the company. Now, the social media frenzy of buying random stocks continues and fashion entered their radar. The share prices of swimwear manufacturer Naked Brand Group Ltd. more than doubled in premarket trading, with an increase of already 203%.
The same thing was done to silver. Small investors answered calls on social media to buy the metal to push up the prices. The movement resulted in massive shortages of silver and according to traders; the situation can worsen if the demand continues to grow like that. In China and India, however, the impact was different. In China, the GameStop-like frenzy did not yet translate into a physical shortage. In India, silver is more seen as a consumption, rather than an investment, thus the market is not being that much affected.
…
Asos Closes £265m Deal to Buy Topshop and Other Arcadia Brands
On Monday, Asos confirmed that it will acquire the Arcadia’s Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridges, and HIIT brands. The online fashion retailer will pay £265 million for the brands, £30 million for existing inventory and will honour £35 million of future purchase orders. The acquisition, however, does not include the group’s 70 stores, including Topshop Flagship at Oxford Street. Around 300 employees from Arcadia’s 13,000 people workforce will be transferred to Asos, most of which will work in design and product-related roles.
To read more about the acquisition, check this article from Financial Times.
…
Dr Martens Makes Its Stock Market Debut Valued at £3.7 Billion
Dr Martens got its start in 1967 in the ruins of post-war Germany. Later the boots were marketed in the UK and the two-pound-a-piece good became a footwear symbol for Britain’s rebellious youth in the following decades. Last week, Dr Martens added a new chapter to its history: a great debut on London’s stock market. The brand was valued at £3.7 billion, with its shares’ prices rising by 26% last Friday, raising £1.3 billion in the offering. It is very rare for such an iconic brand to float. As stated by Oliver Brown, a fund manager at RC Brown, which participated in the offering:
“Dr. Martens is attractive to investors because it has a loyal customer base, high margins and holds a lot of growth potential by expanding its store presence and making inroads in markets such as North American and China.”
.
Keeping Track of Covid-19 Financial Crisis Impact
Salvatore Ferragamo’s sales fall by 33.4% in 2020.
Sandro, Maje, and Claudie Pierlot’s 2020 Sales Drop by 24%.
House of Fraser store in Edinburgh will be closed, resulting in the loss of 200 jobs.
Montaigne Market, a well-known fashion store in Paris, will close after 17 years.
Department Store Belk Will File for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the US.
Rating La Mode - Paris à Tout Prix
This week I am recommending a very laid-back movie called ‘Paris à Tout Prix’. The movie, which is is set in Paris and Marrocco, is about a woman that is living the fashionista dream: she works in a prestigious fashion house in Paris and has made it in her career. The plot changes when she gets caught in a small problem and ends up being deported to her home-country Marocco. Then is all about refinding herself and improving her relationship with her family, while also trying to return to Paris. It is not a prize winner movie, but it is a fun comedy with the fashion industry as the background. I had a good time with it :)
I couldn’t find the trailer with subtitles in English, but depending on where you live, you can watch it on Amazon or Netflix with English subtitles. Other streaming services will have the title depending on where you are based.
Haute Couture Fashion Week -
When the Pandemic Finally Impacts Couture’s Fantasy
Before we start, if you are not familiar with the term haute couture, let me quickly introduce it to you. Haute couture, which in English means ‘high dressmaking’, originated in late 19th-century Paris, and it is fashion at its finest. As explained by Ralph Toledano, president of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, haute couture is “a fantastic laboratory of both craftsmanship and design innovation (…) [It] is a land of free expression for designers, as well as an image builder for brands”. In a less poetic explanation, haute couture is the most exclusive and carefully made sector of fashion, in which designers have the freedom to explore all possibilities of a garment because price-point is not an issue. An haute couture piece is priced between €9,000 to €1 million. The clients? The wealthiest people you can imagine, which is estimated to be only 4,000 people around the world.
Great, so now let’s talk about Paris Couture Fashion Week. Haute couture can seem rather unnecessary or even out of touch with our current times. But if in 2020 the solution for haute couture was to create a fantasy world, in 2021 it was all about addressing the whole international scenario in a light and beautiful way. We saw more daywear, we saw more innovation, we saw more size and gender inclusivity, we saw more pragmatism but we saw less storytelling. Except for Dior and Chanel, most houses were short on the story behind their collections, focusing more on the pieces themselves and on playing with formats and volumes.
Most collections were not about escaping reality, but rather a reflection of the reality of the difficult year left behind. Bijoux gained a new space that for while had been lost, coming back in a more oversized style. American brands also took a larger than usual space of the media coverage about Haute Couture Fashion Week, demonstrating some optimism for the country’s fashion industry.
Except for Dior, there were no full-length fashion films and besides Chanel, there were no live audiences. Some brands also stayed out of this couture season due to the high in Covid-19 cases all around Europe. Finally, it was a different, smaller, quieter couture week, but very fitting for our current times. So let’s go to the review.
.
Schiaparelli Was Eccentric and Marvellous
I am obsessed! In his not even two years at Schiaparelli, Daniel Roseberry has delivered haute couture in a crazy creative tone, one collection after the other. In a year with almost no red carpets, he had some memorable celebrities’ moments, such as Kim Kardashian spending Christmas at his Grinch meets Hulk dress and even more special, Lady Gaga performing at the inauguration ceremony of Joe Biden in a gorgeous piece by the designer. Schiaparelli’s spring/summer couture collection also did not disappoint. I believe he perfectly described the collection to Vogue Runway:
“It’s just something that’s not as polite as couture typically tends to be.”
Indeed, the bijoux of the collection, for example, were as eccentric as they can get. The gowns and other pieces played with formats, making a homage to Elsa Schiaparelli’s moulded bustiers and while also adding his shocking pink signature. Schiaparelli had a very clear idea of the post-pandemic woman - she is eccentrically irresistible – and I am here for it.
.
Dior Showed a Taro-Inspired Collection
During the Second World War, Christian Dior was faced with the disappearance of his sister Catherine, who was part of the French Resistance. In the search for some hope, signs, and answers to his situation, the designer discovered tarot and became a true believer in it. Well, years and years later, Maria Grazia Chiuri decided to take this little fact about Dior’s founder and shape it into a dreamy haute couture collection.
“What was nice for me about the tarot is that when you are in a difficult moment, something that is magical can help us, to help us think better,” Chiuri explained.
The collection was based on tarot cards and presented in a compelling fashion video telling the story of a woman finding herself. I will admit it; I got invested in it, great job! When it comes to the pieces, you can see a spark of Bridgeton. According to Maria Grazia, to get to this aesthetic, she studied the first known set of cards called the Visconti-Sforza deck, which was made by Bonifacio Bembo around 1400 to entertain the family of the Duke of Milan. However, it was only three centuries later in France that the cards got mystical, fortune-reading meaning to them, finally being renamed tarot by the French. Yes, it was a perfect Dior-Chiuri-Italian-French mix of a collection.
And if you are wondering; Dior’s sister Catharine was fine. She was held at the Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp and when she was free, she consoled herself with gardening. Catherine’s love for flowers ended up inspiring her brother, who started to include more flowers and femininity in his designs.
.
Area Did Not Go for Traditional Couture
I love seeing dreamy gowns during haute couture fashion week, those that make you look like a cupcake and feel like a princess. However, it can get boring to only see that, and that’s why brands such as Area got the eyes of so many during this season. Haute couture is about delivering craftsmanship, but if you add some twists to that…even better! And that’s what Area - definitely – did for its debut on haute couture.
The brand’s designers Beckett Fogg and Piotrek Panszczyk stated: “Difference for us is a positive thing.” I guess it was, they really stand out from other more traditional couture collections. The collection was presented through a lookbook and a video shared on their Instagram account. The video featured the models Precious Lee and Yasmin Wijnaldum, a great change from couture’s traditional strict sample size casting. The pieces were full of complex craftsmanship details and explored different cuts and volumes.
I guess the only thing I missed was more storytelling behind the collection. I’m not gonna lie, I love when there is a story behind each piece, and Area didn’t really have a clear inspiration nor a story behind their creative decisions. The most we got was: ‘we wanted to highlight our passion for custom tailoring’. But still, Area’s collection definitely was not your grandma’s couture, and I loved that.
.
Giambattista Valli Sculptured A Gorgeous Collection
Still waiting the day I won’t like Giambattista Valli’s couture creations. This season, as he stated to Vogue Runway, could be summarized in one phrase:
“Go big and stay home.”
But who wears those gowns home? Well, his sales last year were just fine, mostly due to Valli’s Chinese, Middle Eastern, and European clients. So he came back with his formula, keeping his volumes, but adding some inspirations of Sevilla’s culture. He explained we are living a moment that is about coming together as cultures and Sevilla is where Spanish and Islamic cultures mixed and created a new third culture. About his volumes, he explained:
“When you sketch ready-to-wear, you have to be a designer. When you create haute couture, you have to be a sculptor. It’s the difference between building a space and decorating it.”
I liked most of the gowns, but when it comes to the presentation of the collection, I got a little disappointed. There was something off about the lightning of the fashion video and the Sevilla images inserted into it were a bit too random. I did not feel like I was truly emerging into the atmosphere the collection was trying to create.
.
Chanel Hosted a Country Wedding
Weddings, remember those? Chanel wants us to remember because the Maison transformed the Gran Palais in a country wedding in the South of France to present its couture collection. The wedding had the mother and the aunt, the 15-year-old girl dressing up for the first time and even boys (which were girls dressed in old fashioned boys’ clothes. And of course, there was the bride in a twenties inspired look who came on a white horse with an arrival so breath-taking we didn’t even miss the groom.
Chanel’s couture collection was presented to a live audience of a few ambassadors of the brand such as Penelope Cruz and Lily-Rose Depp. The Maison then released a video of the show to its social media. It was a refreshing and charming couture show for Chanel, which is still not over Karl Lagerfeld. But maybe this collection was creative director Virginie Viard finally finding her Chanel path.
.
Fendi Had Kim Jones’s Debut on Couture
There were a lot of expectations for Kim Jones’s debut on couture and when it finally happened it was…nice. I mean, I am not head over heels about it, but it was far from bad. There were some interesting and gorgeous pieces, but nothing that was extremely memorable. Let’s say I just missed the x-factor of it. But still, Jones explored fittings from more everyday couture very well, not only staying in gowns. This was a nice touch, especially at the moment we are living in. It was more down to earth - if that’s even possible with couture.
The collection had many inspirations, from “the visual language of Bernini's marbles to Virginia Woolf's time-travelling, gender-blurring novel Orlando”. The presentation was in a fully digital format, with a powerful casting of models and celebrities including Kate Moss and Demi Moore. The show was pre-recorded at the maze built in Paris' Palais Brongniart and then streamed to the label’s social media. I would say Jones’s had a good started at couture, can’t wait for it to be great!
.
Valentino Went for Effortlessness Couture
“The narrative of the collection is the collection itself. No stories. Nothing figurative. I wanted to work on surfaces, not in a decorative sense, but workmanship which becomes the surface itself.”
That is how Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director of Valentino, explained – and delivered - his couture collection titled Temporal. Valentino’s ratio of daywear to eveningwear flipped this season, answering to the times we are living in. But we still had a few breath-taking gowns we always expect from the designer. What most caught everyone’s attention to Valentino’s couture show, however, were the men. Yes, it is rather rare to see men walking couture shows, so it was a nice change to the casting. As Piccioli himself explained, “couture is for people”.
The craftsmanship was impeccable, as usual. The complex shapes and techniques resulted in perfectly built outfits that would be rarely achievable outside couture. The collection was presented in a show held at Galleria Colonna in Rome without a live audience. The show was then streamed to the brand's social media platforms.
.
Armani Privé Showed Off the Best of Italian Glamour
Giorgio Armani returned to his studios in Milan only this January. Was in the empty and quiet Milano that he found inspiration for his haute couture collection. He translated this newfound nakedness of the city he loves into couture. In a mix of glamour and pragmatism, Armani’s collection was full of pleasant surprises, from the gowns to the strong accessories. The collection full of Italian elegance was presented in a video format filmed at the Via Borgonuovo palazzo that hosts Armani’s couture ateliers and salons.
.
Other Special Mentions:
S.R. Studio. LA. CA. paintball eye-catching couture collection that brought California to Paris Haute couture. (Video of the collection here).
Iris Van Herpen doing what it does best once again by mixing textile technology and craftsmanship.
Thanks for reading this week’s moderated and next Tuesday I will be back with more.
If you haven’t already, subscribe below to receive the moderated newsletter by email.
Also, share this post with friends and family - and don’t forget to leave a like! :)
Bye-bye and see you next week!
About the author behind the text
About the artist behind the illustrations
If you want, send suggestions, comments, or a hi to luizapplima@gmail.com