Paris Fashion Week kicked off with Saint Laurent presenting its latest collection on the grand plaza between the Trocadero and the dazzling Eiffel Tower. For this exclusive event, a meticulously crafted garden sprouted on a raised platform, filled with thousands of white hydrangeas, artfully arranged to form the iconic YSL logo. Faux-stone benches and additional greenery completed the scene, echoing the city’s famed gardens, though this one was a temporary masterpiece for one night only.
Guests, adhering to the early arrival request, used the moments before dark to capture selfies against the picturesque backdrop. The atmosphere shifted with the dramatic arrival of Madonna and her daughter Lourdes, 40 minutes past schedule. Then, between the hydrangeas, appeared a parade of YSL’s signature 1970s and early ’80s aesthetic: a striking pussy-bow blouse, a black leather motorcycle jacket, and a black leather pencil skirt. This era famously blurred the lines between fetishwear and pure elegance. However, as more leather looks emerged, featuring exaggerated shoulders, crisp white blouses, sharp stilettos, and dark shades, followed by sleek nylon raincoats reminiscent of the haute bourgeois Saint Laurent, the collection largely felt outdated. The only true spark of energy came with the finale: voluminous ruffled evening gowns, complete with colossal puffed sleeves, empire waists, and sweeping trains, re-imagined in parachute nylon, creating a dynamic, almost rebellious procession.
But all that fabric, all that fussiness? Who is that woman?
Fashion is teetering on a relevancy brink, at risk of toppling off. It’s not enough to tinker with once-shocking looks of the past; history has rendered them mainstream. Going through the same motions again and again, and taking refuge in nostalgia at this moment of high anxiety — of government shutdowns and strikes and conflicts — may be tempting, but it is making the whole proposition seem increasingly disconnected and static. To a certain extent, luxury has always existed in its own reality. That’s why executives and designers are endlessly talking about “the dream.” But in the current climate, that seems less influential and aspirational than insubstantial.
It’s telling that Nicolas Ghesquière, the artistic director of Louis Vuitton women’s wear, chose to set his show in the section of the Louvre that had been the private apartments of Anne of Austria, queen of France from 1615-1643. And then offered a deeply plush vision of what to wear in the gorgeousness of one’s home when hiding away from the horrors of the world.
Ultrasoft bathrobes coats were layered over matching soft suiting (even the corsetry was made from soft knits),. Drapey onesies came with matching turbans that suggested hair twisted up in a towel after the bath. Crystal-speckled wraps looked as though they were made from snugly shearling, but turned out to be silk brushed so thoroughly it had taken on the texture of fur. Even the shoes were soft: tapestry slippers and lace-ups.
Forget sweatsuits; this was loungewear for the .0001 percent. The fact it was shown in the museum was perhaps more symbolic than it was meant to be. The takeaway presumably is that such clothes equal high art — or at least a decorative art (and often, like those brushed silk pieces, they do). But the unintended implication is that they have become relics of another age.
How to connect fashion to the urgency of the moment, and thus get distracted, jaded, fearful people excited about the transformative potential of clothes is one of the questions hanging over every collection.
The irony is that an answer of sorts may lie in a different kind of show altogether: the new “Virgil Abloh: The Codes” exhibition in the Grand Palais. An immersive look at the work of the former Vuitton men’s wear designer and founder of Off-White who died in 2021, it is the first formal initiative from Virgil Abloh Securities, the foundation created by Mr. Abloh’s wife, Shannon, to manage his legacy.
That it opened at the same time as Fashion Week was a coincidence, Ms. Abloh said (it happened to be the dates the gallery was free), but a fortuitous one. “It just felt like he was up there being like, ‘Of course, I’m going to do Fashion Week this week,’” she said.
Curated by Mr. Abloh’s longtime collaborators Chloé and Mahfuz Sultan, the show essentially invites visitors into Mr. Abloh’s world and mind, starting by recreating his office at Louis Vuitton, complete with its enormous table full of DJ gear. It showcases his hundreds of Nike sneakers, the graffiti art created when Playboi Carti stopped by to visit and they decided to mess around, and the belief system that said whatever you were doing, and whatever you were doing it with, you just kept trying new stuff. The atmosphere is almost electrically alive.
Which may be why on the opening day the small pop-up created in collaboration with Sarah Andelman (the women behind the former concept store Colette) and situated just at the entrance to the show was heaving with people. Whether propelled by a desire to carry off a souvenir of the experience or a bet on its future resale value, they were snatching up Abloh-related merch, like the elaborate Assouline tome of his work with Louis Vuitton, and reissues from one of his many collabs, including a mini-alarm clock with Braun. Within the first few hours of the boutique opening, the clocks were practically sold out.
“I keep hearing about the death of retail,” Ms. Andelman said, looking at the scrum in front of the cash register. “But this doesn’t look that dead to me.”