What To Expect From Paris Fashion Week

We’ll always have Paris, but the bastion of fashion is going through some pretty massive changes this year. You might call it an evolution. Since Vetements cheekily invaded haute couture week last year, only to exit it again after two seasons, show scheduling hasn’t been the same in the French capital. This July, Rodarte and Proenza Schouler moved their shows from New York to Paris for haute couture week, and for this season’s ready-to-wear week Thom Browne and Altuzarra are following troop across the Atlantic.

Christian Dior, which has occupied the 2.30pm slot on the Friday of Paris since forever, is moving its show to the first day of the week, Tuesday, which wasn’t really a ‘day’ until Anthony Vaccarello moved his show to that evening a year ago. Last season, Miu Miu and Louis Vuitton moved their shows one day forward, cutting the week down by a day. But because there’s now no space on the first Tuesday, Jacquemus has moved his show to the night before, meaning Paris Fashion Week now kicks off the same day Milan finishes... and so, we’re back to where we started, just with no break and added stress. Here’s what else is new this Paris Fashion Week.

Givenchy will be the show on everyone’s lips. Since Clare Waight Keller left Chloé and replaced Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy in March, the industry has been following her Instagram for hints as to how she’s going to transform the house. Early campaign shots by Steven Meisel suggested a return to the sophisticated elegance of the Givenchy that Audrey Hepburn swore by, and Waight Keller’s first post after the announcement was, of course, Hubert de Givenchy himself.

Chloé welcomes Natacha Ramsay-Levi as its new creative director. The French designer, who spent fifteen years by Nicolas Ghesquière’s side at Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton, takes over from Clare Waight Keller. Ramsay-Levi belongs to the category of Parisian designers infatuated with Ghesquière’s futuristic avant-garde (cf. Julien Dossena and Atlein). How she’ll apply it to the girly blouses and flouncy dresses the Chloé legacy calls for, we shall soon see.

Carven readies for a makeover when Serge Ruffieux steps into the spotlight with his first ready-to-wear collection for the house. 43-year-old Ruffieux, from Switzerland, served as head designer at Christian Dior alongside Lucie Meier – now creative director at Jil Sander – during Raf Simons’ tenure, and co-designed the interim collections for the house before Maria Grazia Chiuri’s arrival. The discerning eye will recognise the sporty, stringent elegance of those collections in the Resort 2018 he’s already presented for Carven.

Lanvin provided this season’s surprise element when, after just two collections, they announced the departure of Bouchra Jarrar. They brought another round of surprise to the table when the little-known Olivier Lapiduswas tapped to succeed her. This season will mark the first for the designer, who has worked at Balmain Homme and his eponymous Maison Lapidus. If speculation that Lanvin plans to rebrand as ‘the Michael Kors of Paris’ is true, this collection should be an interesting one.

Dries Van Noten celebrated his 100th show last season by flying in the most notable models, who walked for him throughout his three decades in fashion. A few months after the show, I asked him how he was going to follow it up. “Can you tell me? I really don’t know, model-wise. I don’t have the financial possibility to fly them all in again,” he said. “But I can’t go back to 16-year-old girls.” Whatever Van Noten comes up with next, casting as we know it is in rapid change.