PARIS (AP) 鈥� Valentino鈥檚 Paris fashion show on Sunday saw snared lines of black cars dropping off battalions of celebrities who, amid the commotion, just couldn鈥檛 find the entrance.
Seated VIP guests were sweatily crammed in together inside the Le Marais venue, waiting as the show started an hour late. While outside, screaming members of the public braved the rain for hours just for a glimpse of their favorite stars, who included Zendaya, Naomi Campbell, Florence Pugh, Erykah Badu and Ashley Park.
Fever pitch like this at Paris ready-to-wear is reminiscent of the French capital鈥檚 pre-pandemic fashion scene 鈥� and one more visible sign the industry is buoyant again after the devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are some highlights of Sunday鈥檚 spring-summer 2023 collections in Paris:
VALENTINO鈥橲 REVEAL
鈥淐uts and transparencies reveal the persona,鈥� the brand said of designer Pierpaolo Piccioli鈥檚 glitzy spring collection that mixed gimmicks with moments of thoughtful fashion skill.
Models with faces and necks completely covered in disturbing interlocking 鈥淰鈥� make-up began the show, introducing the theme of the reveal.
The exploration of inside-out or back-to-front continued in a beautiful nude skin-like top with matching nude pants speckled sparingly with diaphanous plumes on model Anna Cleveland.
A coat had ostrich feathers peaking out from inside through the hems. The sides of some dresses were scooped out, while a dazzling purple sequined floor-length gown revealed the model鈥檚 flesh only at the back.
Yet at times it felt as if the lauded Italian designer may have tried to fit too much in. By outfit number 91, it also felt exhausting -- with fashion insiders fidgeting for the show to wrap up.
The Valentino finale was the true reveal of the show, which was livestreamed: The models did not even walk past seated guests as usual, but straight outside to the cheering general public, making some inside feel superfluous.
RAIN ON GIVENCHY鈥橲 PARADE
Rain would normally be a good thing in the green thickets of the Jardin des Plantes, the gardens in central Paris.
For Givenchy鈥檚 outside runway, it was another story.
VIP guests including Olivia Rodrigo survived torrential downpours only thanks to helpers clutching transparent umbrellas. But the show had to go on. For Matthew M. Williams, a designer who has garnered lukewarm reviews of late, this collection was a little like crunch time.
For spring, the U.S. designer moved his street aesthetic in a dressier direction -- likely trying to bring himself to the safer ground of the age-old house鈥檚 traditional aesthetic. He had some success.
An oversized tweed black bolero cut a creatively surreal silhouette atop a pencil-thin mini dress, twinned with Matrix-style shades. Elsewhere, features such as ruching on a silken top, or draping on a fluid skirt, resembled thick organic sinews or human ribs.
This felt like a good, gently transgressive, direction for the house immortalized by Audrey Hepburn鈥檚 LBD.
However, many of Williams' design elements still felt out of place on the haute Paris runway, such as 90s low-slung cargo shorts that seemed unflattering, clashing with the black silken ruffled cuffs that dangled down.
THE ART OF THE INVITATION
The art of the chic invite is still very much a staple of the Paris luxury industry.
The little works of art sometimes provide a hint as to what the collection has in store; other times, they are just plain wacky.
Balenciaga鈥檚 spring invite was -- unfathomably -- a real used leather wallet containing real French franc notes, a health security card, a photo of a pet cat, and credit cards as well as other things spilling out. Countless videos appeared on social media of surprised guests opening their 鈥渋nvite.鈥�
One fashion insider exclaimed: 鈥淏ut how do you know how to get to the show?鈥�
Valentino鈥檚 invitation was a smooth black cube that opened to have nothing inside but a QR code. While, Chanel鈥檚 was a card of Kristen Stewart鈥檚 face so big that it could not fit into letter boxes.
BARBARA BUI IS SMART
Low-key French designer Barbara Bui is a good example of how the pandemic affected the fashion industry -- for better and for worse.
Many houses went digital during the lockdowns, opting to show a fashion film instead of staging a show, which was for many months prohibited. In this spring Paris season -- like in Milan鈥檚 -- the industry seems to be very much back to pre-pandemic runways, yet Bui鈥檚 was one of a spattering of collections that continued with the fashion film format.
It鈥檚 a smart move: Smaller houses like Bui鈥檚 have benefited from the new flexibility as runway collections are clearly much more expensive to produce.
The collection鈥檚 spring video featured a couple of lovers in a French country house seeking each other out and seemingly wearing each other鈥檚 clothes -- a good theme for a co-ed fashion show.
The film鈥檚 use of light sat well with the fluidity of a loose white tuxedo suit on a bare chest, or a giant multicolored foulard thrown nonchalantly over the male model鈥檚 naked shoulder. A cobalt blue one-shoulder piece was set off by the male model鈥檚 metallic, androgynous nail polish.
Thomas Adamson, The Associated Press
