How Wide Do You Want Your Clothes?

The sign in the Levi’s window on Rue Étienne Marcel declared it: “La Saison du Baggy.” And so it was. Here in Paris clothes are wide, loose, flouncy. Yet nothing kills a trend faster than being mainstreamed, and Levi’s? That’s mainstream. So, on Thursday, I watched the shows with an eye for who was reveling in and who was rejecting this supersize norm.

The morning certainly began on planet pendulous with the Japanese label IM Men (part of the Issey Miyake brand universe). Black pleated trousers flapped like sails, and skirts in primary colors were folded over at the hem like too-large tablecloths. Models arrived laden with jumbo fringed scarves. They looked like armchairs, covered in throw blankets. It was baggy but also beautiful.

The California label Amiri sat somewhere in the middle. The dominant trouser cut hugged the butt, went straight through the leg and flared at the hem. It was in keeping with Amiri’s now-rote vibe, which is essentially, “If a musician wore it in Rolling Stone 50 years ago, it’s good for us!” It’s also good for celebrities like Jeff Goldblum, who sat smirking in the front row in a patterned dinner jacket suited for Elton John.

Out came high and tight leather jackets, pearl-buttoned Western shirts, faded-at-the-knees jeans and Buddy Holly frames. The “Laurel Canyon 1976” T-shirt literalized what was clear to see.

The longer and leaner cut at Rick Owens delivered more of a jolt. This was advanced Owensology. Models wore shorn, calf-squeezing denim capri pants with what Mr. Owens called “grotesque police boots,” their heels higher than a pint glass. When the models walked, they flashed a naughty hint of knee.

“I usually do something super-tight or super, super-wide,” Mr. Owens said. This time, he said, “it was all about that cropped pant.” It was also about the tight-on-the-body overcoat, a silhouette that we first saw at Prada, was seconded by Mr. Owens and was confirmed as a trend at Dries Van Noten on Tuesday night.

But Mr. Owens doesn’t so much as lengthen or widen the line as explode it. Take his straight-up-and-down car coats. They could’ve been made by a prim Italian brand, but Mr. Owens capped them off with angular, ear-high collars, Dracula style.

The showstoppers, though, were magnificent overcoats with flexy forms extending across the shoulders. Picture a hammerhead shark or a tuna’s tail across the top of the jacket. “They were just a flourish,” Mr. Owens said. If he had his way, men’s wear would enter “La Saison du Poisson” next.

Other things worth knowing about:

To my knowledge, Kartik Kumra of Kartik Research is the only designer to address American tariffs head on. The Indian designer said he wanted to give more work to Indian artisans, who have watched their business dip because of tariffs. At just 25, Mr. Kumra is skilled at making craft look … well, not crafty. His crystal-embroidered work pants, block-printed tuxedo shirts and needle-punched tailoring impressed me. I was on the lookout for a tie, though. Mr. Kumra made one for Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration, though he confessed that the new mayor hasn’t spurred a tie rush.
Gentleman, start your irons. Creased jeans, a 1980s novelty, are resurfacing. First at Auralee, then in the Fear of God showroom and just an hour later at Amiri.
Dries Van Noten was the inverse of Dior. Yesterday I wrote that Dior’s many ideas lacked a cohesive concept. Dries Van Noten was lots of ideas with a cohesive concept. The designer Julian Klausner heaped on rainbow-striped turtlenecks, ribbed-knit long johns, mod ties, argyle V-necks of many colors and an overcoat of patchwork upholstery fabric. It sounds like a lot, and it was. But it was believable as the wardrobe of a magpie millennial whose taste-o-meter had long been broken. Chaotic but crisp.
Tell your barber to give you “the mess.” A day after I saw mullet hairpieces at Dior, Rick Owens served up shaggy wigs in dusty pink and ombré blue. I was also amused by the bed-heady, omnidirectional hairdos at Yohji Yamamoto.
One: the number of Marty Supreme jackets I’ve seen in Paris. But the movie doesn’t come out here until next month.