Givenchy's Front Row Might Be Fashion Week's Most Unexpected Yet

All it took was Gal Gadot, Sam Smith and Rebel Wilson to blow the Paris Fashion Week front row scene wide open. Clad in their monochrome Givenchy best to take in creative director Clare Waight Keller’s autumn/winter 2019 collection, the trio were a breath of fresh air for press and buyers now entering their fifth consecutive week of international presentations.

It’s also a reassuring sign that Waight Keller, who famously designed the wedding dress of Meghan Markle – the people’s princess – outwardly practices the same inclusive codes as the client who turned the Birmingham-born designer into a household-name couturier. The Duchess of Sussex presented her with the Womenswear Designer of the Year accolade at the Fashion Awards 2018, but alas, she is about to go on maternity leave after her last royal tour around Morocco. It is is not unfounded to think that Meghan might sit on the sidelines at a Givenchy show sooner or later, however. The Queen graced London Fashion Week with her presence a year ago to present Richard Quinn with the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design.

The Tommy Hilfiger show, which showed the designer's spring/summer 2019 collaboration with Zendaya, was also a starry climax of the autumn/winter 2019 show season. Indeed, the Spiderman actor had big shoes to fill. After the fanfare previous collaborator Gigi Hadid generated for the brand, Zendaya called in the big guns: Grace Jones.

While the “Pull Up to the Bumper” performer lent the stage her mighty voice and moves (no hula hoops, sadly), 58 other black models, aged 18 to 70, and including Beverly Johnson, Veronica Webb, Beverly Peele and Pat Cleveland, walked the runway. With Janelle Monáe, Yara Shahidi and Luka Sabbat cheering from the FROW, it was a grand hurrah as a show season marked by sadness after the death of Karl Lagerfeld and uncertainty owing to the political landscape of Europe comes to a close.