To a certain extent every fashion show is an exercise in predicting the future, for both designers and their audiences. What will people want to wear in six months? What will you want to wear? What will suddenly be everywhere, and what will fall by the wayside?
Recently, however, as the rumor mill around designer change has once again gone into a kind of overdrive, shows have also turned into something else: a game of Clue about the future of a house and whether the designer currently at the helm would still be there next season. Show notes have become the equivalent of tea leaves, and the collections themselves not just a proposal for what is to come, but a referendum on a designer’s legacy.
The mood colors the clothes.
Such was the case with Saint Laurent at the beginning of Paris Fashion Week, where gossip around the designer Anthony Vaccarello’s expected departure seemed substantiated by the elegiac experience of the show itself. And such was the case with Chloé and Balenciaga, two brands also believed, but not officially confirmed, to be in flux.
At Chloé, for example, where the designer Chemena Kamali is said to be heading to — yes — Saint Laurent (where she previously worked as women’s ready-to-wear director), the designer certainly seemed to have heritage on her mind.
The show was essentially a whistle-stop tour through the themes of her three years at the house: crisp cotton eyelet and billowing frills, haute hippie skirts and hipper ’70s flares. With a series of voluminous early ’80s raincoats and exaggerated nor’easter hats thrown in for — well, it was unclear. Throwback climate-change chic?
The idea, Kamali said during a preview, was “following, in a very free way, all the things I’ve been kind of always obsessing about” at the house, as if to remind everyone of just how quickly, and effectively, she had re-established the Chloé girl as an avatar of free spirited, romping-in-the-fields cool. A note left on every show seat ended with the words, “Forever Chloé.” It seemed like a sign (and, perhaps, explained the standing ovation).
If Kamali is, indeed, moving on, at least she leaves behind a clear direction for the house.
By contrast, things were more opaque at Balenciaga, where the designer Pierpaolo Piccioli has been in an uncomfortable position since he joined just over a year ago. Caught between the luxury romance of the aesthetic he established in his previous gig at Valentino and the more hard-core streetwear of his Balenciaga predecessor, Demna, Piccioli has often gotten lost in the middle. As have his collections, which have seemed more confused than couture. The house’s owner, Kering, is said to be losing patience.
This season, however, Piccioli seemed to find his footing, raising the everyday and relaxing the formal without pandering to either. Button-ups were densely stitched at the waist to create an integral peplum. Simple white denim was paired with increasingly elaborate tops, like a lacy feathered tank worn with the insouciance of a shrug. A voluminous pale pink taffeta ball gown had the shape of a T-shirt and was tossed over bias-cut jeans.
Bias-cut jeans! There’s an idea.
It was a very fancy way to do casual. And in a post-WFH time, seemed to capture the mood of how people actually want to dress. (The I-Dream-of-Jeannie cargo pants, however, were another story.)
When uncertainty is in the air, sometimes all you can do is your job.
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