After the men’s ready-to-wear week presenting the summer of 2024, it’s haute couture’s turn to parade in a context of tension and riots, which casts a shadow over this highlight of fashion and led Celine to cancel her show on Sunday. When questioned, the Fédération de la haute couture et de la mode confirmed that unless otherwise prescribed by the authorities, the parades will be held as planned, from Monday July 3 to Thursday July 6.
Field of excellence, French haute couture is intended for a wealthy elite and remains the fruit of the work of the creators but also of their precious collaborators, who have been able to pass on age-old know-how while innovating. This season, eleven certified members, six foreign labels (correspondents) and fifteen guest members, i.e. 32 houses are registered on the autumn-winter 2023-24 calendar.
The highlights will be the presence on the Paris catwalks of two newcomers to the calendar: the Saudi brand Ashi and the American brand Thom Browne. We also note the return this season of Frenchman Charles de Vilmorin, who presented his spring-summer 2021 couture in January 2021.
Ashi: this appointment is the highlight of my career
At 26, Ashi will present his first couture show for his own brand on July 6, after briefly serving as artistic director for Rochas. Its previous collections, one in pop colors and psychedelic prints and the other entirely black, had been unveiled in videos during the health crisis. Ashi, who has dressed Queen Rania of Jordan, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger or Lady Gaga, founded her eponymous house 17 years ago in Beirut before moving to Paris in 2018. This creator of architectural silhouettes through pure lines describes his style as poetic romanticism.
For this first representative of the kingdom and the Gulf to integrate the week of haute couture, it is a historic nomination. Ashi is the first designer from the Gulf to join the most prestigious Federation, Ashi studio noted in a statement. An announcement coming in the midst of the kingdom’s offensive, criticized for human rights abuses, intended to improve its image internationally.
This appointment is the highlight of my career. It gives me the opportunity to share with you who I am, said the couturier. In an interview earlier this year, the designer told AFP that he never insisted on his nationality, partly out of shyness and partly because Western fashion was taboo when he was growing up in Europe. Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. In the 90s, I was the only Saudi designer. But I never said I was Saudi. I wanted the clothes to be visible, not me, he said.
Now, as his ultra-conservative country goes through social reforms, he was welcomed home as a mentor for the Fashion Commission, created in 2020 to help build a local industry. They give people scholarships for something that was forbidden when I was growing up. It’s an iconic moment, he said.
The Stéphane Rolland fashion show filmed by Claude Lelouch
I’m super happy for him, told AFP fashion designer Stéphane Rolland who says he discovered him on a television show in the Middle East where he was president of the jury. He is an artist poet, a dreamer, he says. There is a pool of talent in Saudi Arabia that hasn’t been able to express itself the way it wanted for a long time.
Stéphane Rolland will present a parade dedicated to Maria Callas at the Opéra Garnier on July 4, which will be filmed by Claude Lelouch for his film Finally, whose opening scene will have this parade as a backdrop. A tribute to the diva whose 100th birthday we will celebrate. The opportunity to bring together an audience of artists, actors, and where each will play their own role as an extra or star. The fashion house, aware of this privilege, prepares, accomplice and in secret, this heavy responsibility to also pay tribute to an extraordinary lyrical personality, an icon of the social life of a Paris that we wish to reinvent. To celebrate a director with infinite sensitivity, in love with Paris, and with life. Isn’t that also the mission of haute couture? said the couturier in a press release.
Thom Browne takes a liking to Paris
American designer Thom Browne has been parading in Paris – for several seasons already – in the men’s and women’s calendar.Honored with the CFDA Menwear Designer of the Year Award in 2016, 2013 and 2006, the GQ Designer of the Year in 2008 and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in 2012, he will present his collection on July 3, the first day of haute couture week. . He is familiar with unusual but often romantic universes.
Two exhibitions to discover the talents of tomorrow
Haute couture week also includes events like these two exhibitions dedicated to the talents of tomorrow.
Mossi, Les Ateliers Alix and Le Campus Mode, Métiers d’art & Design present the exhibition Tributes to Madame Grès at the Galerie du 19M (2, place Skanderbeg, 75019 Paris, until July 9). It pays homage to the work of Madame Grès through the creations of students from professional fashion high schools compared with original pieces by the seamstress but also pieces by designers such as Yohji Yamamoto, Olivier Saillard and Mossi.
At Appart Renoma, a constantly changing hybrid space, fashion designer and photographer Maurice Renoma presents Esmod hors les murs (129 bis, rue de la Pompe 75016 Paris, until July 8). The students of the class of 2023 Fashion design Esmod international show their creations in this place of cultural and artistic encounters which highlights the talents of tomorrow’s fashion and a profession which is at the same time know-how, spectacle and art.* 100030*
