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What a surrealistic world we are living in!
In the midst of economic crises and the war in Ukraine, in Paris restaurants are fully booked, prices are exorbitant and it takes 2 hours for a taxi driver to get you two kilometers away from your departure point (if you are lucky enough to get one).
It’s Haute Couture Fashion week, ladies and gentlemen.
It’s cold, windy and gloomy in the French capital (it’s still winter here), but only outdoor. Inside the luxurious palaces, opulent hotel ballrooms and glorious gothic churches the high fashion designers are providing their vision of spring-summer 2023.
It’s rich, sophisticated, sometimes majestic, sometimes focusing on the details. It’s hot and glamour.
Everything is going on as usual here: mobs onlookers and paparazzi in the street. Black Mercedes dropping half-but-impressively naked first row influencers and VIP guests.
All shows run at least 30 minutes late. We wait, we evaluate each other, we check out smartphones, we get excited, we tag.
And then, the mystery begins.

No wonder that every new season Schiaparelli gains momentum. Surreal times oblige, and lucky for formerly sleeping house, it has employed Daniel Roseberry who perfectly reflects both the founder’s concept and the modern outlook for the artistic direction.
New summer collection became the most instagrammed and controversial at the same time. It was inspired by Inferno of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the first cycle of Dante’s journey where he met the animals: a lion embodied by Irina Shayk: pride; a leopard – by Shalom Harlow: lust; and a wolf by Naomi Campbell: avarice.
After such an impact, as straightforward and provocative for the animal activists as it could be, the rest of the collection almost went unnoticed. It’s a shame, as the best of it was elsewhere.

Not less spectacular and impactful in an uniquely positive way was the summer proposition by Viktor & Rolf. The designers shown their version of couture ballgowns skewed, perpendicular to the body and even put totally upside-down.

Dresses worn by the models over the impeccable beige corsets look like if mismatched by a filter of your telephone app.

“There is a disconnect between what we see, and the physicality of the product. The information that comes at us, going from making banana cake to so many people being killed in Ukraine. It’s: What kind of world are we living in? It’s absurd,” explained Rolf Snoeren backstage.

Haider Ackermann has become the fourth guest designer for a one-season collaboration with Jean Paul Gaultier since the founder of the Parisian haute couture brand retired.
In his collection presented by tradition under the roof of Jean Paul Gaultier’s house, Ackermann went back to the essence of the “Enfant Terrible” work, his perfect tailoring, pure line and calmness.
The creative aesthetics of the Colombian origin designer is the opposite to Gaultier: “I don’t have a sense of humor at all! I have my gravity, and he has his generosity and joy – we are two worlds apart. But at the same time, we have many things in common. Because we both love women, we adore women, respect women.”
Thus, a collision of these two universes might be less hyped than the animals’ heads at Schiaparelli show but is the haute couture only about that?

…Dear All, welcome a new couture designer! She is South Korean, freshly graduated from London’s Central Saint Martins but already made a huge buzz at the last Milano fashion season where her collection was supported by Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce in persons!
While the Chinese Guo Pei has deserted the French capital due to the Covid restrictions, it’s Sohee Park who has all chances to take her vacant “holy” place.
Because two Asian designers have more than one thing in common. Starting from the theatrical approach to fashion and the masterful fusion of their respectives countries’ craftsmanship heritage and moderne techniques.

By the way, “Miss Sohee” chose the gilded salons of the Westin Paris-Vendôme, formerly known as The Intercontinental Hotel to showcase her first Parisian collection.
It’s the place where Yves Saint Laurent used to present his legendary collections.

As per the guardians of the temple, the houses who suppose to epitomize the high fashion spirit, Dior and Chanel went pretty “daily couture” this time.
It might come out as a respond to the houses’ venerable clients desire to wear something classical but always with an art (backdrop) twist.

Thereby, Virginie Viard at Chanel refreshed the everlasting tweed suits by creating rejuvenated silhouettes inspired by drum majorettes or circus ringmasters.

While Maria Grazia Chiuri found out in the House’s archives that Josephine Baker was performing in Dior couture in New York in 1951.

The American-born French Black star and civil rights activist became the perfect starting point for the summer collection of Dior.
But instead of drawing inspiration from the famous imagery of Baker as a showgirl, Chiuri took a less known photos of Baker in restaurants, wearing day-suits and uniform during the war.

Pierpaolo Piccioli in his new summer collection for Valentino brought the audience to the club, in both, literal and figurative meaning. Literally as the show took place in a famous bar/night club under the Pont Alexandre. Figuratively as on his inspiration board there were photos of clubs in the 1980s, ranging from Studio 54 to London’s New Romantic Blitz Club.
The Italian designer tries to make high fashion inclusive in a way to democratize it. Well, the question is how we can democratize something with an entry price accessible for less than 1% people on Earth, and the places for the show strictly reserved to happy few top editors, influencers and star clients.
Piccioli seems to bring the focus from the craftsmanship as a keystone of the haute couture to the “effortlessness and freedom of being whoever you want to be”.
At the outcome there are 90 looks (!) with the predominance of signature Pink PP in all of its hues and shapes. Show must go on.

There have been debates over the imminent disappearance of hight fashion from the industry’s ecosystem since years.
Nevertheless, haute couture is still there and attracts to its short but busy weeks not less attention than ready-to-wear.
It’s a laboratory of fashion, a place where creatives can express themself without commercial limits. Or, at least, it’s not ONLY commercial interest which guides them. It’s also an attitude.
I used to say that as long as we need to dream, haute couture will exist.
Yet, fashion is just a miror of the current world. Will it be able to reflect some beauty in the darkness of the moment we are passing through..?