Innovation In a Time Of Uncertainty

by Juan Lopez

There’s something in the air in Paris. Amidst a tumultuous year that has shaken the fashion world, due in part to rising costs and increasingly price-sensitive consumers, the Spring/Summer Paris Fashion Week was met with numerous highs and lows throughout its jam-packed week. While many designers took this chance to play it safe, a handful of them saw the opportunity to do something truly innovative with their season.

Themes of masculinity and power were some of the highs expressed throughout the week: most prevalent in the power suits of Yves Saint Laurent. For their SS25 collection, designer Anthony Vaccarello was inspired by a quote from Yves Saint Laurent himself back in 2000, who when asked about who his ideal woman was, Yves responded “himself.” The result: expertly crafted mannish tailoring, with wide double breasted jackets and matching wide pants cut to perfection. Breaking up the form, Vaccarello often layered the suits with equally sublime leather jackets and trench coats.

That’s not to say all of YSL this season was suits and ties—Vaccarello shifted the show to present decadent lace and brocade upon colorful blouses and long-flowing skirts. Taking it one step further, each of the 49 looks were accompanied by accessories ranging from a chunky beaded necklace to heavy eyewear. While some designers fell to the rhythm of blandness this season, what Vaccarello curated is not just refreshing, but undeniably Yves Saint Laurent.

With a shared focus on empowering women, Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior went back to her origins at the fashion house, using sports to manifest power. In 2016 it was done with fencing, this time around Chiuri uses archery with competitive archer Sagg Napoli. Much of the clothes lean heavily into the athleticism of the sport, with sharp angular lines carried over the shoulder like an arrow quiver—but with a hint of relaxism intended for the way the modern woman might wear her exercise clothes outside of the gym. Subtle details and accessories, like a pair of gloves that creeped up and over the shoulder, were pulled directly from the Dior archives of 1949 as a way for Chirui to connect with the house’s history of formal riding attire. Chirui masterfully finds a balance between the ideas of femininity and strength, making the claim that neither has to be sacrificed for the other.

Of course, not everyone is so hellbent on reviving what has been said and done. The collections of Schiaparelli and Mugler are testament to the fashion houses’ bravery in doing things a little differently. After a period of “quiet luxury,” fashion is seemingly returning to its embrace of the eccentric, and no one is more excited than Schiaparelli designer Daniel Roseberry. Rather than choosing repetition, Roseberry strayed away from rehashing trends and instead wanted to represent the mind of the “life-of-the-party” type. The designer chose to place an emphasis on the hourglass shape, aided by numerous corsets in everything from ribbed jersey to front-zipped denim. True to his style, Roseberry made sure to generate interest by playing with texture and surface, manipulating material in ways many designers have not. Similarly, Mugler designer Casey Cadwallader celebrated the historic brand in a “menacing” way. Mixing the brand's darkly dramatic blood with sci-fi elements, Cadwallader showed off incredibly geometric silhouettes with curved panels that shoot out and away from the body. Uniquely, Cadwallader stated how he wanted this collection to step away from the “characters and personalities” that Mugler is known for, instead putting more of an emphasis on the clothes themselves. That emphasis is present in what is essentially an overall lighter show, with plenty of intimate pieces that the Mugler customer should find themselves wearing more often and to more places than before.

Whether by way of remembering and revitalizing what was or by choosing to carve out their own paths, plenty of designers at this year's Paris Fashion Week took to the stage to show the world what they think will come for their beloved industry in the future. Ideas of identity, gender, and power that once were have been flipped on their heads, and the fashion houses of Paris have embraced that. Even in an uncertain time where transition and change is plentiful, and the industry begins to slow and stabilize to post-pandemic levels, there still remains a lot of hope in their futures.