Paris Fashion Week Review
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In this week’s moderated, I brought the highlights of the Paris Fashion Week, analysing the good and bad aspects of this season’s complicated event amid Covid-19 second wave.
But before jumping into the main article, check the last week’s recap of the Fashion Industry.
Last Week’s Recap
Glenn Martens Becomes New Creative Director of Diesel
Last Year, Diesel went through some rough moments, getting to the point of filling for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy at its US division. Since then, the company made some changes and in 2019 it recovered its growth. Early this year, the brand appointed its new chief executive Massimo Piombini. Now, Diesel announced that its new creative director is the founder and designer of Y/Project, Glenn Martens. He will start at his position at Diesel right away and balance it with his post at Y/Project.
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Amazon Opens the Holiday Shopping Season Earlier
Amazon’s Prime Day has been pushed to October this year, opening earlier the holiday shopping season. The event became an extremely important sales day in the US, only behind Cyber Monday and Black Friday. Prime Day will happen from 13 to 14 of October, pressuring the end-of-the-year discounting season that usually starts only around November. Even though most deals of Prime-Day tend to centre around electronics, Amazon also has many fashion items taking part in the sales, especially basic garments such as T-shirts and underwear. This year’s Prime-Day also offers another purpose: to clear out Amazon’s inventory so it can better dedicate itself to what will probably be a massive wave of holiday orders. Prime-Day’s proximity to Black Friday added a new layer to the challenging holiday shopping season that most retailers will have.
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Against the Mainstream, Uniqlo’s Expansion Strategy Includes Brick-and-Mortar
Uniqlo’s parent company Fast Retailing, with annual sales of US$21.8 billion, is a close third to Zara’s owner Inditex (US$33.1 billion) and H&M group (US$26 billion). For a decade, it has been trying to fulfil the plan to overtake its rivals by making its main brand Uniqlo as know in the West as it is in Japan. So far, the strategy didn’t work as well as expected, with 90% of sales still coming from Asia. However, Covid-19 changed the rules of success and with China being everyone’s focus, Uniqlo is betting on a different strategy.
While Zara and H&M are announcing the closure of hundreds of stores worldwide to focus on online sales, the Japanese brand plans to increase its footprint in China from 800 stores to 3,000. Fast retailing still has a long way to go when it comes to their e-commerce, which accounts for only 11.6% of its total sales as of August 2019. However, Tadashi Yanai, the chief executive of Fast retailing, stated that Uniqlo’s strength in Asia opens a large opportunity of growth.
“This may finally be the turning point when we move from the age of the West to the age of Asia,” said Yanai to The Wall Street Journal, “Our hope is to become the world’s No. 1 apparel brand.”
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Puma Sales Drop As Kering Sells 5.9% Stake
French luxury group Kering sold 5.9% stake of German sportswear Puma for approximately €656 million. The sale caused a drop of 3.5% on Puma’s shares. During the last years, Kering has focused more on its high-margin luxury brands such as Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta. In 2007, Kering owned 86% of Puma, which lasted until 2018, when the French group spun off 70% of Puma to its shareholders. Puma struggled during its time as part of the Kering group. However, the brand had a revival in the last few years due to soccer teams’ sponsorships and celebrities’ partnerships. Even though Puma was affected by the lockdown measures, sales have rebounded with the pandemic encouraging people to exercise more. Puma’s largest stakeholder, with a stake just under 29%, is still Artemis, the holding company of the Pinault family that founded Kering.
Rating La Mode - These Two Articles About ‘Emily in Paris’
I have been living in Paris for almost a year, so believe me when I say I was super excited for the new Netflix series ‘Emily in Paris’, about a girl from the US moving to Paris to work in a luxury advertising agency. But my excitement didn’t last very long, in fact, after the first episode, I was already annoyed by the ethnocentric character of Emily and the stereotypical view of Paris and its people. Even the clothes were bad and completely unrealistic for Paris lifestyle (I wore heels once in Paris and I regretted it). Even before finishing the series - yes I insisted on finishing - I jumped to google to understand if I missed something and if there were other people as annoyed as me with the series. The answer to the first was no, to the second was a big fat yes. So here are my two favourite articles about ‘Emily in Paris’ that get the message straight about how awful and disrespectful this series was.
The first article, which was published by Vogue, is a letter from a Canadian expat that lives in Paris for 7 years to Emily - and she got as annoyed as I did with the series.
The second article is from the New York Times gets the facts straight and explains in details why this series was so bad and inaccurate in all senses.
Paris Fashion Week Review
I live in Paris for almost a year now, which if you make the maths was mostly spent during Covid-19 times. It was not nice and the confinement here was one of the strictest ones. When brands started to announce they would have live fashion shows in September for the Paris Fashion Week, I remember sending the news to a few friends of the industry saying I thought brands were delusional. At the risk of biting my tongue later, I told my friends that there was no way physical fashion shows would be a thing so soon and if they would, it would be controversial. Now it happened and I think some would say I was right and some would state I was wrong because this Paris Fashion Week was as confusing as it gets.
There is a lot to be said about Paris Fashion Week. From controversial physical shows to a new opportunity for smaller brands to shine, the week was intense in a different way than the usual. France is one of the countries facing the strongest second wave of Covid-19 in Europe and when Paris Fashion Week arrived, the situation was still worsening (and still is). Despite that, almost half of the brands and designers that participated on this season’s PFW decided to host live shows with guests and, even though most were quite small and in open spaces, some were none of these. Some publications criticised the live shows with guests, especially those that had around 300 people attending the shows. Some designers themselves expressed concern with the decision of having live shows during a Covid-19 second wave. As Daniel Roseberry, artistic director of Schiaparelli stated in a recent podcast held by Business of Fashion:
"There is something very irrelevant about what we bring to the table right now. Fashion shows don't have to be relevant right now. There (are so) many other things that are more important."
However, the smaller scale of the event gave more space for smaller brands and designers to shine and steal the spotlight for a bit. Designers such as Marine Serre and De Saint Sernin had the opportunity to innovate and get attention, while usually, they are obfuscated by the extravagant productions of larger fashion houses during PFW.
In the end, despite live shows faced some controversy, they delivered buzz. A few digital fashion weeks later we know that not having influencers, celebrities, editors and buyers attending the shows hurts the engagement and noise brands make. Also, not sure if it was a way of keeping people distanced, but large shoulders are back according to PFW. Therefore, we could say PFW was both a success and a failure because so many good and bad things can be pointed out that it gets confusing. And that’s kind of, it was a confusing fashion week… actually a confusing fashion month that finally came to an end. How will the world be in February now?
So let’s go throw the highlights of this season’s Paris Fashion Week.
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Kenzo Presented a Delicate Survival Uniform
Images from Kenzo Instagram Account
Last season, the Kenzo fashion show in Paris had the weirdest coincidence. With all guests fleeing Milan due to the spread of Covid-19, encountered at the Kenzo show a human-size plastic tunnel arriving at a rose garden. The tunnel would then dramatically shut before another group of people could come in, reminding a sci-fi quarantine scene. This season, Kenzo’s designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista wanted to reuse a tunnel for the show that was set in the same garden. However, “the company that built it went bankrupt because of COVID,” he said. A tragic irony that pretty much represents the moment we are living in.
The collection was inspired by the documentary Honeyland, which is about beekeeping in Macedonia. But the tone felt more like a pandemic uniform. But the collection had a heavy environmental message. Kenzo works with recyclable plastics, collaborates with WWD to double the population of tigers (one of the brand’s “mascots”), and other environmentally conscious projects. For the spring 2021 collection, Oliveira Baptista said he saw beekeeping at the documentary as “one of the most ancient collaborations between man and nature.” It was a delicate survival wardrobe full of optimism and fear at the same time – which fits perfectly the current moments. As the designer explained:
“We don’t even know what to be afraid of and what to believe in. The whole idea of protection becomes abstract.”
It would have been perfect if it wasn’t a live show with guests held during the same week when Kenzo’s founder, Kenzo Takada, passed away from Covid-19 complications. This is probably the most tragic “coincidence” the brand had.
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Schiaparelli’s Collection Was a Piece of Art
For its Ready-to-Wear collection, Schiaparelli’s Artistic Director Daniel Roseberry created a surrealist piece of art with everyday pieces. The jewellery was the focal point of the collection, but the clothes also brought a lot to the table, creating a provocative yet wearable wardrobe. The collection was presented digitally through a look book and a behind the scenes video. The photos were by themselves pieces of art that could be easily placed on a museum’s wall.
“A renewed energy to focus on what I want to say here, to capture the irony and what Schiap was about. Her legacy still lives really large, and it feels really true to this moment,” stated Roseberry.
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Paco Rabanne
This season, Paco Rabanne collection was a tribute to the brand’s first collection “Twelve Dresses in Unwearable Materials”, which debuted on 1966. The pieces were everyday essentials reimagined in an exaggerated yet wearable way. As Julien Dossena, the brand’s creative director, perfectly explained: “It’s a bit like a classic wardrobe on steroids — I pushed everything in a bit of an exaggerated way.” The collection was presented in a live fashion show format, with a few guests. The models, which were friends of the designer, came straight from the streets of Paris into the show’s installation.
Another reference for the collection was the recent protests from girl students in France. All started when schools returned in September and teenage girls were sent back home for wearing cropped tops and short skirts. This resulted in girls protesting against being gaslighted for indecency and provoking boys. The protests soon became a hashtag calling all high school students to go to school on September 14 wearing something provocative. Dossena admired these actions and included them in garments such as crop tops and complicated lace dresses with visibly inserted bra cups.
“It’s just so old-fashioned, these attitudes in France. These girls were really rioting. I’m so impressed by them,” said Dossena to Vogue.
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Dior Tried to Reimagine Its Silhouette
Dior held a live fashion show with 300 guests in Paris, a third of the usual number. The location of the show was an indoor large tent built in Tuileries Garden that looked like a cathedral from the inside. Dior was one of the largest shows during Paris Fashion week and some publications criticised the brand’s decision to host the show. Despite the controversy, the show got a lot of media for its beautiful production and also for the small protest at the end of the show – an intruder holding a sign written ‘We are all fashion victims”.
The collection itself was based on two main principals: dress it up and keep it simple. Maia Grazia Chiuri, the creative director of Dior, shared that the late artist Germano Celant was an inspiration for the collection. His phrase Tagliare è Pensare, which means “To Cut is to Think” brought the idea that collage translates something from the past into a new language for the present, ready to move to the future. This could be seen in the clothes and the decoration of the show. Chiuri tried to bring the tailored silhouette of Christian Dior to a new comfy wardrobe sensibility.
“This is very far from the Dior look, because Dior was a couture house. (…) We had to approach this collection with an idea more of design. We are living in a different way and staying more at home within our intimacy. Our clothes have to reflect this new style of life,” said Chiuri to Vogue
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Givenchy Has Its First Collection By Matthew Williams
This season was Matthew Williams's debut as creative director of Givenchy...and the change was perceptible. With a subversive and utilitarian aesthetic, Williams’ first collection mixed his couture and street style references. The collection was presented only in a look book with models posing with the pieces. The only video production was the history of Williams himself, another move of the brand towards building a celerity-designer image. When I first heard Matthew Williams would be designing for Givenchy, I knew the brand would change a lot - but I still got surprised by how much it did. I am honestly a bit sad with the new way of Givenchy due to the fact that I am a big fan o Givenchy’s Audrey Hepburn aesthetic. But I guess we have another luxury brand converted to street style.
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Marine Serre Compelling Short Film
Marine Serre presented her collection in a compelling short film that brought some post-apocalyptic sci-fi vibes. The film was directed by Sacha Barbin and Ryan Doubiago and the soundtrack was composed by Pierre Rousseau. Her beautifully crafted collection kept in mind the recent 30% increase of biking in Paris, which resulted in pragmatic yet baroque pieces. As Serre stated to Vogue:
“You need to be able to function in the clothes, otherwise you might as well just wear a tee and jogging pants.”
Ah, and there is some footwear from a collaboration with Jimmy Choo. Finally, the fully digital presentation was a success, especially with larger brands having to tone down their PFW productions, Marine Serre spring 2021 got a lot of the spotlight.
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Chanel Made a Tribute to Its Muses
Chanel hosted a live show with guests and as usual, transformed the Grand Palais in Paris, this time with a giant white lettering spelling Chanel, almost as its own Hollywood sign. Virginie Viard, the creative director of the brand, explained: “this collection is a tribute to the muses of the house.” The garments had a strong 80’s aesthetics with old-school glamour and some could say it was even over-styled. Between the Chanel logo lettering everyone in garments, there were some sophisticated pieces that truly stand out. And the Hollywood feel of the event has a message behind it: in 1931, Coco Chanel’s designs were considered too subtle to the silver screen. Great, but I am still struggling to understand how this luxurious massage of Hollywood starts and Chanel muses fit the tough moments we are living right now. I feel like it was not enough to be escapism, it was too much to be down-to-earth.
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Other Highlights Were…
Balmain held a live show with digital and physical audiences (guests could be seen in screens seated at the event’s first rows) to present a collection with over 2 million Swarovski crystals and a lot of large shoulders.
Thom Browne created a lunar Olympics collection emerged in white sets and fun short film.
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