Haute Couture Fashion Week 2024 Paris Recap
Last Thursday marked the end of Paris’ Haute Couture Fashion Week, which some consider to have been among the best in years. MAM-e summarizes this week’s top collections that were displayed.
The best collections presented during Haute Couture Fashion Week Paris 2024
The fashion system is currently being hit by a gust of aesthetic restoration. The return of dressmaking, which primarily produced wearable, if somewhat boring, clothing, was the clear takeaway from the haute couture week that concluded on Thursday night in Paris. It was not a dream season. It had to do with luxurious realism.
When Maria Grazia Chiuri alluded to the protruding angles of the house founders’ 1953 Profile collection, things at Dior weren’t quite right. The “support beams” at Viktor & Rolf and Jean Paul Gaultier by Simone Rocha were visible. At Schiaparelli, models lived in their own ivory towers, and the first glimpses of Ronald Van Der Kemp’s work alluded to both Legos and the Bauhaus.
Dior
For Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri, a certain directness has always been important; her interpretation of the house’s lexicon is fuss-free, direct, and sensitive all at once. Despite her endless artist collaborations (this time the set featured giant silhouettes of Ottoman dresses, devised by Isabella Ducrot) and heartfelt feminist messages, her work, which heavily draws from Dior’s archive, lacks the excitement of the new. Nevertheless, the clothing is always incredibly attractive—a woman communicating with other women—which contributes to Dior’s remarkable success.
Her couture offering has been understated but flawlessly executed in recent seasons; the most recent appearance was no exception, with a touch of the 1950s, featuring voluminous skirts, nipped waists, spherical kitten heels, and intriguing pairings of regal moiré silks and utilitarian cottons.
Giambattista Valli
When you mention tulle, Giambattista Valli instantly comes to mind. This season, Valli was feeling a little stricter, despite his signature gowns made of meters and meters of the material being part of the ensemble once more. He sketched a new picture of femininity, one that was sensual and fierce as well as blooming and delicate. He did this by exploring the pencil-thin, graphic side of his own personality.
Simone Rocha and Jean Paul Gaultier
Although Simone Rocha and Jean Paul Gaultier seemed like an odd couple on paper, the outcomes of Rocha’s guest designing gig at Gaultier Paris were stunning to see and brought genuine emotion to an otherwise lifeless season. The combination of glamorous seduction and rough-and-tumble infantilism worked because Rocha opened herself up to a lot more possibilities and shades of femininity than she usually does by embracing her otherness within her own code.
Robert Wun
The collection featured a strong romanticism, but it was also seductive, dark, and even captivating; thorn-shaped breast cups provided a feeling of investigation into the countless nuances of femininity, from naiveté to allure. A cast of women of various ages and physiques—a rarity in the Ozempic era—and a brilliant score by Frederic Sanchez contributed to the poignant outcomes.
Viktor&Rolf
One need only take a seat and pay attention if even the everlasting practical jokers Viktor & Rolf become bourgeois. The pair wore their most conservative ensemble in recent memory. Despite the four variations of each item—small black dresses, gowns, trench coats, and tuxedos—and the increasing degrees of chaos and scissoring, they all managed to look very put together.
Schiaparelli
Is the media-entertainment and celebrity circus of society fading? Hardly, but it was interesting to see Daniel Roseberry from Schiaparelli skip the garish ornamentation that has made him popular on the loudest red carpets in favor of structure, keeping the hand as heavy as necessary and the silhouette striking and attention-grabbing. Although this was Roseberry’s most confident Schiaparelli appearance to date, with a more subdued and subtle sense of the wild surrealism inherent in the brand’s DNA, there was still a lot of Alexander McQueen in his Givenchy years.
Alaïa
In the end, this season was more about technique than image. This was evident at Alaïa, where Pieter Mulier’s most recent ready-to-wear collection focused entirely on virtuoso technique. Azzedine, the founder of Alaïa, is now only a memory. At the house he built, however, his legacy lives on in the statuesque femininity and the desire to create beauty through dressmaking and a commitment to craftsmanship. Mulier was able to achieve a newfound softness that ultimately appeared to be a reconciliation with the curves of the female body by working with circular shapes and a single merino wool thread.
Maison Margiela
It’s up to John Galliano at Margiela to completely blow everyone away with a magnificently insane celebration of how clothes can change a person both internally and externally. To be honest, everything seemed so insanely Belle Epoque that it felt very John; there was not even a hint of Martin Margiela. There was a sense of pauperism and the beauty of the worn throughout everything. From the opulent display to the corset silhouette for all genders to the stunning freaks gliding by, this was a fashion moment in every way. And the outcomes were both nostalgic and forward-thinking, divinely decadent.
Gaurav Gupta
Named “Aarohanam” after the idea of an ascending scale in Indian music, Gupta fused a more contemporary approach with the futuristic pleated and raised sculptures that are his signature. Presenting striking, richly beaded clothing with structured shoulders and corsetry accents, worn with flowing, pleated skirts or dhoti pants. His embroidered bolero jackets had a jagged snakeskin effect and a textured irregularity thanks to his use of twenty different traditional Indian techniques.
Conclusion: Dior, Giambattista Valli, Simone Rocha for Jean Paul Gaultier, Robert Wun, Alaïa, Maison Margiela, Viktor & Rolf and Gaurav Gupta presented some of the best collection during Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week 2024.
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