Inspiring Moments From Paris Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2023

Rick, a cult favorite on the PFW calendar, utilized seemingly unconventional materials for his Fall/Winter 2023 (FW23) collection, LUXOR. His signature voluminous silhouetting,  with enveloping folds of fabric crafting colossal shapes, fashioned each model gliding down the elevated catwalk with a distorted anatomy. The dark and unorthodox, yet inventive showcase also featured a range of desaturated hues, metallic pinks, and blacks, greys, and browns on constructed jackets, draped dresses, capes, cloaks, and sweaters.

Working with creative director Jonathan Anderson, Loewe — who continuously incorporates tongue-in-cheek characteristics — gave us optical illusions and trompe l’oeil this season. With some garments featuring blurry dress motifs printed on actual dresses, as well as leather pieces with rigid, structured leather tops, dresses, and skirts — taking a literal approach to the term ‘boxy’. Most pieces were saturated with blacks, browns, and other neutral colors splashed with an occasional hint of pastel hues.

For the set design, Jonathan tapped artist, Lara Favaretto, to create a set of 21 colorful oversized confetti cubes crafted from 10 tons of recyclable solid confetti. Favaretto also normally utilizes materials that retain fragility,  to continuously study the relationship between ‘monument and ruin’.

Entitled ‘The Square and Beyond,’ Issey Miyake’s FW23 collection conveyed a conceptual manipulation of the warp and weft,  consisting of carefully crafted knitwear techniques and incorporating mini conceptual assortments within the collection as a whole. The assortments included Canopy, Square Scheme, Rhythm Check, Counterpoint, Shaped Canvas, Rectilinear, and Square One,  with each of these consisting of 3+ looks.

Rectilinear, for example, consisted of a composition of rectangles in varying colors, which were also horizontally knitted in a linear pattern. Each assortment was poetic in nature — in the strategic way the stitches, colors, and shapes were crafted to create each individual garment.

This season was Harris Reed’s debut collection as creative director at the iconic French fashion house, and he did not disappoint. Throughout the showcase, we witness one statement piece after another, with beautifully voluminous dresses, skirts, coats, and capes adorned in vivid colors and bold motifs, including thick black and white stripes and oversized polka dots. The collection was also abundant with strong suitings complemented by millinery composed of fur, lace, and felt.

“Singularity is the past. Intellectually poly. You are dressed for every evening of your life unfolding at once,” boasts an excerpt directly from Ottolinger’s press notes. More cult favorites on the calendar, Cosima Gadient and Christa Bösch entice the ‘Ottolinger girl’ to have her cake and eat it too — showing up and making any look work. Along with showcasing garments, knee-high boots, leather high-top sneakers, and crossbody bags in collaboration with Puma, we were  also enamored by Ottolinger’s  motocross-inspired jackets, tops, corsets, deconstructed puffers and knitwear, and garments printed with distorted motifs — which is irrefutably one of the brand’s signatures.

Sarah Burton, creative director of Alexander McQueen, articulates drama in a beautiful yet mysterious and melancholic way with ‘Anatomy’. Executing this collection with incredibly strong sartorial pieces, she describes the showcase herself as “an exploration of beauty and power through tailoring fabrics with a focus on cut, proportion, and silhouette.” The collection was permeated by a dark, yet romantic color palette, with the incorporation of silhouettes with strong shoulders, cinched waists, double-breasted blazers, coats, and skeletal knitwear. 

Since Virgil Abloh’s passing in late 2021, designer Ib Kamara was tapped as the new creative director of Off-White, and for his sophomore collection entitled ‘Lunar Delivery,’ the venue was transformed into a vast sandscape — reminiscent of the atmosphere of perhaps another planet, with the artistry of the garments in this collection complementing the set design. The collection delivered afro-futuristic appeal with metallic puffer jackets, strong tailoring punctuated with countless grommets, occasional exaggerated draping, and deconstructed knitwear.