Paris Fashion Week opened with a Saint Laurent show held on the square between the shadow of the Trocadero and the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower.
A garden had been built for the occasion on a raised platform filled with thousands of white hydrangeas in full bloom arranged in the shape of the YSL logo (best viewed by Livestream via drone). Around the place were faux-stone garden benches and more greenery, so it looked like you were in one of the city’s many other maintained gardens – the Tuileries, for example, or the Luxembourg – except this one had been tended to order, for just one night.
Guests had been told the doors closed 10 minutes before the show was scheduled to start, and they obediently filed in early, seizing the extra moments to snap selfies against the scenery until darkness fell. Then they sat down and looked around. Then they started to squeeze each other’s legs. Then Madonna arrived 40 minutes after the appointed time with her daughter Lourdes and a pussycat blockbuster blouse, black leather motorcycle jacket and black leather pencil skirt appeared between the hydrangeas. It was YSL, circa the 1970s and early ’80s, when it straddled the fine line between spunk and elegance.
Five or 10 years ago, that was the formula for magic. Create a fantasy setting where none had existed, add superstars, filling the archives. But as more leather began to flow with exaggerated shoulders, exaggerated white blouses, spiky heels and shades, followed by the slithey nylon raincoats of the Saint Bourgeois Bourgeois era, it seemed mostly archaic. At least the finale of voluminous, ruffled evening gowns, with giant puffy sleeves, empire waists and billowing trains updated in parachute nylon, had an appealing energy, like a mob of angry pulleys.
But all this fabric, all this hustle and bustle? Who is this woman?
Fashion shortens a relevant edge, in danger of overturning. It’s not enough to tinker with once-shocking looks from the past; The story made them mainstream. Going through the same motions over and over again, and taking refuge in nostalgia at this moment of high anxiety – of government shut-ins and strikes and strife – can be tempting, but it makes the whole proposition seem more and more disconnected and static. To some extent, luxury has always existed in its own reality. This is why executives and designers talk about “the dream” all the time. But in today’s climate, it seems less influential and aspirational than insubstantial.
It is telling that Nicolas Ghesquière, artistic director of Louis Vuitton Women’s Wear, chose to do his show in the section of the Louvre that had been the private apartments of Anne of Austria, Queen of France from 1615-1643. And then offered a deeply fluffy vision of what to wear in the beauty of one’s home while hiding from the horrors of the world.
Ultrasoft bathrobe coats were layered over matching soft jumpsuits (even the corsetry was made from soft knits). The drapey onesies came with matching turbans that suggested hair twisted in a towel after bathing. The crystal goblet wraps appeared to be made from perfectly fine shearling, but turned out to be brushed into silk so carefully that it had taken on the texture of fur. Even the shoes were soft: tapestry slippers and laces.
Forget the survins; It was loungewear for the .0001%. The fact that it was shown in the museum was perhaps more symbolic than it was intended to be. The takeaway is presumably that these garments equate to high art – or at least decorative art (and often, like these brushed silk pieces, they do). But the unintended implication is that they have become relics of another age.
How to connect fashion to the urgency of the moment, and thus be distracted, jaded and frighteningly excited by the transformative potential of clothes is one of the questions that hangs over every collection.
The irony is that one kind of answer may lie in a different kind of spectacle: the new exhibition “Virgil Abloh: The Codes” in the Grand Palais. An immersive look at the work of the former Vuitton menswear designer and Off-White founder who died in 2021, it is the first official effort by Virgil Abloh Securities, the organization started by Mr. Abloh’s wife, Shannon, to manage his legacy.
That it opened at the same time as Fashion Week was a coincidence, Ms. Abloh said (it was the gallery’s dates), but fortuitous. “I felt like he was there like ‘sure, I’m going to do Fashion Week this week,'” she said.
Curated by Mr. Abloh’s longtime collaborators Chloé and Mahfuz Sultan, the show essentially invites visitors into Mr. Abloh’s world and mind, beginning by recreating his office at Louis Vuitton, with its enormous table full of DJ equipment. It features his hundreds of Nike sneakers, the graffiti art created when Playboi Carti stopped to visit and they decided to play, and the belief system that said whatever you did, and whatever you did, you just kept trying new things. The atmosphere is almost electrically alive.
Perhaps that’s why on opening day, the little pop-up created in collaboration with Sarah Andelman (the women behind the former Colette concept store) and located right at the entrance to the show was heaving with people. Whether propelled by a desire to take away a souvenir from the experience or a bet on its future resale value, they were ripping off the Obloh-related dealer, like the elaborate Tome Assouline from his work with Louis Vuitton, and reissued from one of his many collaborations, including a mini alarm clock with Braun. In the first hours of the store’s opening, the clocks were almost sold out.
“I keep hearing about the death of retail,” Ms. Andelman said, watching the melee at the cash register. “But it doesn’t seem dead to me.”
