Paris Women’s Spring 2021 ended on a rainy Tuesday (the 6th of October) after 8 days filled with digital and (still) physical shows. There wasn’t the same business and the same euphoria on the streets, but there was still hard work and creativity shared on the runways.
Designers have shown that against all odds, creativity thrives.
Chanel, known for their extraordinary productions at the Grand Palais, had the house name displayed like the Hollywood sign, but overall this time, there was slightly less grandeur than normal. In a statement about her designs, Virginie Viard wrote that she wanted the collection to be “very joyful, colourful, and very vibrant too,” perhaps offering a last-ditch effort to embrace the fun side of Paris as it closes its bars due to rising Covid-19 cases. (CNN)
To those who would normally attend his in-person Loewe show in Paris, he sent a rectangular box which housed wallpaper that mimicked the fabric of his collection, as well as life-size posters of the looks along with glue and a paintbrush to help adhere everything to your wall. “While we are in a situation where travel is restricted, I still wanted the viewer to participate,” explained Anderson in the video segment that accompanied his lookbook. “They’re forced to be creative. They’re forced to interact.” (Coveteur)
The Miu Miu show was livestreamed from Milan, the show set imagined a cyber-spacious sports arena covered in screens with the—also livestreamed—faces of Miu Miu poster girls watching the show, including Elle Fanning, Chloé Sevigny, and various influencers. The collection captured the accidental uniforms of young people. It’s a wardrobe suspended between the extremes of the hyper-casual and that stilted sense of formality you get from a prom photo. “Polarity. These are polar times,” as Prada said in a statement after the show. (Vogue)
“It was important to find a new way to communicate a collection. Because no one was able to travel, I just sent the clothes to the artists and they [worked with them] themselves,” explained Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski, Hermès designer. (Vogue)
Natacha Ramsay-Levi, the designer at Chloé, said that “The idea was to pick them up within their own intimacy of real life,” referring to the cameras’ zoom lenses. “It’s about showing something that’s more attentive, more spontaneous, and more intimate, and taking time to look at a woman and the way she moves and acts in a much more natural way. Rather than just say, ‘Okay, you should walk like this.’” (Vogue)
Here are a few highlights from this year’s Paris Fashion Week.
