During the Spring Festival holiday of the Rabbit Year in January, the social circle of China’s fashion industry generally followed three major themes: Nine-grid travel notes, brief movie reviews in a few words, and a glimpse of the Paris show.
On January 16th, as the opening show of Paris Men’s Fashion Week in Fall/Winter 2023, Saint Laurent, which returned to Paris to hold an independent men’s fashion show after seven years, presented a collection that could be called “the best of the season”; On the 22nd, Maison Margiela, which made a final appearance, finally presented a physical fashion show again. The performance-style catwalk and dramatic design once again lived up to the expectations of the outside world for John Galliano, and this ready-to-wear show that combined high fashion tailoring techniques and punk spirit became a preview of the haute couture week. In addition, as a guest designer, Colm Dillane also used a series of tributes to Virgil Abloh, full of childlike fun, to help LV declare “LV men’s fashion will not change drastically in the post-Virgil era”. With 79 participating brands, more than 50 offline fashion shows, and two stunning performances by “homecoming prodigal sons”, this season’s Paris Men’s Fashion Week is a veritable topic maker.
Following on January 23rd, as the men’s fashion editors dispersed, the world’s wealthiest and most exclusive group of haute couture customers and women’s fashion editors arrived in Paris one after another.
As the pinnacle of the fashion world, haute couture represents, to some extent, an old and enduring fashion order, and a symbolic significance of the ultimate fashion dream. Under the trend of bringing haute couture clothing back to real-life scenarios, large silhouettes and decorative effects are no longer the hallmark of a haute couture garment. Craftsmanship, fabrics, and tailoring, these elements that hide value in subtlety, have been brought to the forefront again. Just as the Renaissance brought about “rebirth” and “revival”, today’s haute couture is also going through this stage, from breaking boundaries, to romantic revival, to re-embodying the dream-making essence and wild fantasy that haute couture should have, just like Chanel, Schiaparelli, and Viktor&Rolf. The strong contrast between realism and surrealism is precisely the current state of Paris haute couture, which is a re-emergence of the subjectivity of fashion, and also a reflection of reality.
Chanel Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection
From January 16th to 26th, the Men’s Fashion Week and Haute Couture Week took place one after another. People were still recovering from the “surprises/shocks” presented on the runway when LVMH Group released its 2022 financial report filled with “record-breaking good” phrases, with Louis Vuitton becoming a true titan brand with annual sales exceeding 20 billion euros. Forty-eight hours later, Gucci announced the appointment of a new creative director – Sabato De Sarno, the current Fashion Director and ready-to-wear designer of the Valentino brand.
The fashion industry, which never needs to be quiet, achieves its own renewal at the fastest speed and highest intensity possible, while attracting the attention of the audience. It is a well-deserved “spectacle maker.”
Karl Lagerfeld once brought airplanes, cable cars, rockets, beaches, and mining pits into the Chanel runway show, pushing the expectations of the audience higher and higher over the years. So when Virginie Viard stopped spending a lot of money on the runway scenery to create a luxurious fashion dream for the public, and instead guided the audience to focus back on the fashion, people were disappointed at first, but gradually got used to it. However, this habit was broken again in January of this year.
Chanel: It does everything right
Virginie Viard and artist Xavier Veilhan
At the Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture show, Virginie Viard once again showcased the grandeur that a leading brand should have in terms of runway installations. Artist Xavier Veilhan, at the invitation of Virginie Viard, embarked on his third collaboration centered around the Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture collection. In the teaser video released before the show, Xavier Veilhan presented the scene he imagined, with running dogs and horses passing through the jungle and arriving in front of the Chanel store on Rue Cambon in Paris. Model Vivienne Rohner then emerged from the tall bird sculpture created by Xavier Veilhan and entered the private residence of Gabrielle Chanel.
Chanel Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection
At the same time, these large-scale art installations also appeared on the runway. The venue was transformed into a beige-toned French village square, filled with a festive atmosphere as a celebratory parade was about to set off. Eleven giant animal sculptures made of wood, cardboard, and paper by Xavier Veilhan stood in the center of the runway, with models emerging from them. Although it is not enough to describe the runway design as spectacular, Virginie Viard has, to some extent, recreated the surprise and anticipation that Chanel’s runways used to bring to people.
As for the fashion part, Virginie Viard drew inspiration from festive parades and carnival performance uniforms, with embroidered patterns of kittens, puppies, rabbits, and swallows breaking the formality of haute couture. The end of the series, following tradition, featured a bride in a dress embroidered with swallow patterns, bringing the carnival-themed haute couture collection to a close. The biggest difference from Karl is that Virginie Viard raised the waistline and used more short upper garments to create a more elegant Chanel woman image.
On Chanel’s clothing works, it is difficult for people to easily find particularly big surprises/shocks. With the dual support of the unparalleled craftsmanship of dozens of workshops and decades of stable style output, Chanel has reached a state where “everything is right.”
Chanel Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection
As a top-tier brand deeply intertwined with market perception, the Wertheimer family, who actually controls the brand and is known for their mysterious and low-key approach, has never sought radical adventures. They adopt a consistent and prudent operational philosophy. This confidence largely stems from the brand’s market recognition. Chanel’s “double C” logo has become a guarantee for performance, and the status it represents has long been a strong attraction to consumers. Its bags, jewelry, ready-to-wear clothing, and the beautiful imagination they create make Chanel a desire-generating machine that always keeps running.
The Saint Laurent 2022 Winter Collection featured a remix of Hong Kong singer Guan Shuyi’s 1989 song “Rare Lovers” by French musician Sebasitan, which was incorporated into the show’s music. Although it was only about 20 seconds long, the line “Let the lovers add sexiness” perfectly described the sexy, dangerous, and distant collection created by Anthony Vaccarello.
In the latest Fall/Winter 2023 men’s collection, this sexiness has not only been preserved but has become even more intense. Anthony Vaccarello has abandoned the last traces of traditional men’s tailoring in previous men’s collections, and has created a non-mainstream aesthetic of a weak male image with the sexiness inherited from the women’s collection. High-shouldered coats, bow-tie collars, wrapped and twisted tops, and the inverted triangle silhouette brought by the upper and lower narrow shapes all reproduce the classic creations of Yves Saint Laurent that have been repeatedly narrated in countless clothing history books.
Saint Laurent Fall-Winter 2023 Men’s Collection
This is considered by ConCall as the best of this season’s Paris Men’s Fashion Week. It seems like Anthony Vaccarello has finally found a Saint Laurent men’s route after much experimentation – one that is sufficiently detached from mainstream aesthetics, sufficiently gender-ambiguous, and sufficiently emphasizes the decorative and social aspects of men’s clothing. After watching the entire collection, one might exclaim that men’s clothing can also be extremely dangerous and sexy.
Saint Laurent: Best menswear week of the season
Saint Laurent Fall/Winter 2023 Men’s Collection
As Saint Laurent replaces Gucci to become one of the new growth drivers of Kering Group, its market performance in ready-to-wear products and accessory bags is no less than that of Gucci. Moreover, it also has fragrance and beauty products with strong market influence, which Gucci cannot match.
According to HSBC’s previous forecast, Saint Laurent’s sales in 2022 are expected to exceed the 3 billion euro mark. In addition, in Kering Group’s growth strategy plan released in July last year, Saint Laurent has also been elevated to a new strategic height, with the group setting a medium-term revenue target of 5 billion euros for it.
Saint Laurent Fall/Winter 2023 Men’s Collection
Under the Parisian night, the elegant young men of Saint Laurent hardly need excessive ornate words to describe them. Referring to the classic song “Late Night Harbor” by Guan Shuyi, “The black silk scarf flutters with loneliness into the harbor in the wind, standing alone in the neon lights, I watch the ferry go with the waves,” the rise and fall of fashion all flow gently in the twists and knots at the neckline of the chest.
As predicted by the outside world, Louis Vuitton has no intention of overhauling its menswear department. Instead, it has chosen to continue the trend set by Virgil Abloh, packaging its men’s collections with the “story of a boy’s growth.”
In early January, the brand announced that Colm Dillane, the head of the Brooklyn label Kidsuper, will serve as a guest designer for Louis Vuitton’s menswear, collaborating with the existing design team to create the Fall/Winter 2023 men’s collection. After Virgil Abloh’s death due to illness, the brand’s menswear department has been managed by the original design team. Therefore, this collection led by a new designer is also seen as the starting point for the brand’s post-Virgil Abloh era.
LV Men’s Guest Designer Colm Dillane
In terms of design language, Colm Dillane is very similar to Virgil Abloh. Both have a background in street culture and their designs are full of imaginative and unconventional ideas, which also fits the style tone that Virgil Abloh has set for LV men’s fashion. The fashion show venue was arranged into several rooms, with objects such as cars, toys, sofas, graffiti on the walls, and children’s beds, all contributing to the realistic living scene of the venue. Models walked through them as if they were walking at home.
Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2023 Men’s Collection Runway Installations and Styling
In terms of design, the neat silhouettes and bright color schemes have been retained, while the paper airplanes, test papers, and oil paintings print elements showcase the childlike fun of the collection. As for the accessories, Colm Dillane also possesses the ability of Virgil Abloh to turn ordinary items into interesting ones. For example, test paper folders are stacked together to create a new handbag, and different brand classic bags combined together form a Frankenstein-style combination handbag.
Louis Vuitton ：The boy is still growing up
Louis Vuitton Fall-Winter 2023 Men’s Collection
Overall, this collection is more of the same, still a men’s narrative wrapped in the story of a boy’s growth. It is a tribute and remembrance to Virgil Abloh by Colm Dillane, and also a clear development strategy of Louis Vuitton for men’s business. When a path has been proven to be useful, then at least for the time being and for a period in the future, Louis Vuitton will continue to consolidate its influence in the men’s field along this path.
Since taking the helm of Maison Margiela, John Galliano has been low-key as if he has become a different person. His speech and demeanor have lost the arrogance of the past. The days of being meticulously dressed for the grand scene of applause and cheers at the end of the show are gone. However, John Galliano, who sometimes appears in a white lab coat, occasionally revealing half of his body or not taking the stage at all, has never abandoned his inherent passion for performance-style fashion shows and dramatic design.
Maison Margiela Fall/Winter 2023 Co-ed Collection
Over the past three years, Maison Margiela’s release schedule has been inconsistent, often missing the traditional fashion week schedule, and its release format has mostly adopted a cinematic approach for online releases. Therefore, this Fall/Winter 2023 co-ed collection fashion show is the brand’s first offline fashion show since the Fall/Winter 2020 collection and the first time returning to the Paris Men’s Fashion Week schedule after the pandemic. The fashion show was held at the brand’s new headquarters in Paris, presenting a co-ed ready-to-wear collection, with the theme being a sequel to the previous haute couture collection “Gothic Lovers Story.”
The 19th-century Southern Gothic, 20th-century British punk, and mid-21st-century futuristic fantasy, spanning hundreds of years of cultural waves, were integrated into one fashion collection by John Galliano in a very personal romantic style. The models, who were in a hurry and looked nervous, continued John Galliano’s love for performance-based fashion shows. The torn fishnet stockings, plaid fabrics, and deconstructed trench coats responded to his British cultural background and were also a tribute to his predecessor, the late designer Vivienne Westwood. After all, for John Galliano, who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, the influence of the punk trend initiated by Vivienne Westwood was too great.
Maison Margiela Fall/Winter 2023 Men’s and Women’s Mixed Collection
As a genius designer, John Galliano is almost proficient in classical clothing history and European history, which can be seen in his stunning graduation work inspired by 18th-century fashion. Coupled with his passion for theatrical art, John Galliano might be better referred to as an “atypical costume designer” rather than a traditional fashion designer.
However, unlike other designers with strong personalities who lack business acumen, since joining Maison Margiela, the brand’s global expansion and commercial growth have been witnessed by all. Although this strong growth is based on a low base in the past, popular products such as Tabi shoes, Snatched bags, and perfumes have become the driving force for the brand to achieve commercial profits. Currently, Maison Margiela is one of the fastest-growing brands in the OTB Group. With his ever-lasting design talent and ability to monetize in business, John Galliano remains one of the most undisputed geniuses in history.
Maison Margiela 2023 Fall/Winter Unisex Collection
Maison Margiela: It makes you restless
John Galliano and OTB Group founder and chairman Renzo Rosso
From a once-forgotten fashion house to the first choice of celebrities on the red carpet, Schiaparelli has made a remarkable comeback in just a few years. What’s more interesting is that unlike other brands that rely on celebrities to enhance their designs, Schiaparelli’s creations seem to amplify the aura of the stars themselves, even when worn by divas such as Bella Hadid, Michelle Yeoh, Cate Blanchett, Adele, and Rihanna. On red carpets around the world, only Schiaparelli can create the spectacle of clothing outshining the celebrities wearing them.
Bella Hadid wore Schiaparelli’s Fall/Winter 2021 Haute Couture Collection.
Schiaparelli’s ability to make a strong comeback with its work can undoubtedly be attributed to the brand’s current Creative Director, American designer Daniel Roseberry. Since he took the helm of the brand, the long-dormant Schiaparelli quickly returned to the spotlight. In an era of mediocrity, Daniel Roseberry chose to return to the brand’s original starting point, using surrealism and dramatic design to break the calm. His designs, which combine classical fashion silhouettes with surrealist art, have also quickly received unanimous praise from the industry. Moreover, thanks to the dramatic and exaggerated effects of the design, Schiaparelli has obtained the “traffic code” for breaking through the global social media circle. From this perspective, in the current “attention battle” where every brand is trying to win, Daniel Roseberry has easily achieved victory without fighting, just by design.
“Schiaparelli Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection”
The brand, founded in 1927 by Elsa Schiaparelli, gained fame in the early 20th century for introducing surrealist art into the realm of high fashion. Elsa Schiaparelli was even considered the greatest rival of Gabrielle Chanel. After nearly half a century of ups and downs, Schiaparelli, which had ceased fashion operations and only retained perfume business, was spotted and acquired by Diego Della Valle, the chairman and CEO of Tod’s Group. It was not until the arrival of Daniel Roseberry that this nearly century-old fashion house brand truly returned to the mainstream.
Schiaparelli Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection
In the latest Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection, Daniel Roseberry draws inspiration from Dante’s “Inferno” from “The Divine Comedy,” creating extremely realistic animal head dresses representing desire, pride, and greed in the form of a leopard, lion, and she-wolf. He invited three top supermodels, Shalom Harlow, Naomi Campbell, and Irina Shayk, to interpret these looks. Kylie Jenner even wore the lion head gown to the front row in advance.
Schiaparelli: The triumph of Surrealism
Shalom Harlow
As expected, the three animal head designs have become the most polarizing creations of this season’s Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week. The majority of critics are animal protection organizations and environmentalists who accuse the brand of glorifying the killing of animals. On the other hand, those who praise the designs do not hesitate to shower them with compliments, believing that Daniel Roseberry’s realistic animal heads made from materials such as resin, foam, synthetic fur, silk, and wool are a tribute to the brand’s founder, and they also commend him for raising the aesthetic standards of haute couture fashion.
“Animal Head Creation”
The polarized comments caused by information errors brought unexpected gains to Schiaparelli, although the brand later issued an urgent statement saying that there was no intention to harm animals. However, the ability to maintain a shocking and transcendent reality is also the most charming aspect of this brand.
In most books that tell the story of fashion in the 1990s, Viktor&Rolf is a brand that cannot be bypassed. It does not have a large commercial scale and a wide audience, but it constantly stimulates the sensitive nerves of the fashion world with provocative, rebellious, and even absurd designs. Richard Martin, a curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States and a fashion historian, has said that the two designers of Viktor&Rolf, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, have made people believe that their pursuit of concepts and practice can break through the hierarchical classification of traditional art and design fields, creating a visual art language that belongs to contemporary times.
Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren
Since launching their first fashion collection “Hyères” in 1993, this designer duo has been trying to subvert the traditional rules of the fashion industry. Whether it’s silhouette cutting, the way fashion is worn, or the form of fashion shows, they strive to minimize the limitations of commercial operations on creativity. As a result, the two designers have been able to expand the boundaries of fashion on a few pieces of fabric for decades, and truly make fashion a medium that can directly convey thoughts and reflect reality.
Viktor & Rolf Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection
In their hands, fashion can be reduced to a flat oil painting hanging on the wall, can be layered to become a set of Matryoshka dolls, can be printed with slogans to express dissatisfaction with the current state of the fashion industry, and can even be boldly cut at the waist to create an optical illusion. Therefore, for them, fashion is more like a tool for expressing ideas.
Viktor&Rolf Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection
In the era of highly developed internet and the proliferation of social media, this kind of design is often referred to as “incomprehensible.” Just like this latest Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection, the dresses with unremarkable silhouettes are “hung” on the models at various angles, either upside down, laid flat, or parallel to the model’s body. In short, none of them are properly dressed. It is this absurdly beautiful, spectacular, and provocative attitude that makes Viktor&Rolf the most unique presence in the Paris Haute Couture fashion world.
Viktor&Rolf Spring/Summer 2023 Haute Couture Collection
Now that Viktor&Rolf has closed its ready-to-wear line and only retains its haute couture and bridal collections, it is deepening its global market business layout with the support of the OTB Group. The OTB Group, which is seen as the savior of niche designer brands, not only provides Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren with a high degree of creative freedom but also helped the brand find a new CEO, Matteo Franceschini, at the end of last year. Although the global haute couture market is small and concentrated, Viktor&Rolf’s persistence still allows everyone to see the interesting and infinite possibilities of fashion art.
As the ultimate dream of fashion, our summary of haute couture is also based on how these brands continue to create dreams and whether they are worth discussing. We summarize the new collections of haute couture brands from this perspective.
