Paris Fashion Week Fall 2014-15: Highlights

Fashion month has come to a resounding close culminating with 93 shows at Paris Fashion Week. That probably took a toll on all the editors in attendance, only to result in a month of stay-at-home-no-heels recovery.

This season, Paris was a burst of energy and trend-setting exuberance. The greats delivered true to their brand name with a little dab of their personality on the side. Nicolas Ghesquière’s debut at Louis Vuitton was a stark entry where he brought his modernist vibe and yet celebrated the house’s leather goods.

Beyond Louis Vuitton, Paris Fashion Week was filled with definitive Parisian flair and a dose of notoriety. So here are the highlights that stood out from the rest!

Rise of the Prints

Prints were a forerunner during London Fashion Week and similarly the trend retains its stand on the runways of Paris. Whether it’s minimalistic or blatantly overblown, prints are set to be a constant feature in fashion.

It was a hypercolour barrage of prints at Dries Van Noten. It was a visually intense runway with colour clashes, slightly trippy swirls emblazoned on top of floral motifs and at other times your eyes would be transfixed on the psychedelic polygons. As random as the prints were, the silhouettes reflected the sporty direction fashion is gearing towards with zippered jackets, pants and parachute details.

Everyone would have heard of Chanel’s Shopping Centre set design and as much as we were enraptured by the idea or rather the kitschy products on display, let’s not the forget the clothes. Karl Lagerfeld splashed candy inspired prints in bright, bold colours and arranged them geometrically across zippered corsets, dresses and within the linings of coats. Who knew shopping at a supermarket could look chic? We’ll also need one of those Chanel chained baskets in tow.

Carven’s interpretation of prints took on a surrealist painting’s vibe with silhouettes of hands, shadows and arrows plastered across coats and jackets. Towards the end, a long dress featured a woman’s face with her eyes scribbled out – a flawless cinematic ending.

Caped Crusader

Arguably, fashionable starlets immensely appreciated the vibe of a superhero that comes with donning on a cape. So much so that the outerwear rears its head for yet another season.

Valentino delivered a softer, feminine cape with butterfly and bird motifs, clearly reminiscent of a fairy tale in the woods. On the other hand, Saint Laurent’s version was crafted in bolder hues creating a quintessential Le Smoking aura!

Winter White

It’s evident that dark hues will dominate this winter but nonetheless flecks of brights and snowy whites will impeccably dot the scene. The all white trend that is leading Spring Summer 2014 seems likely to continue into Fall in a series of textures including fur, knit and chiffon.

Gareth Pugh delivered a largely white on white line up with instances of ivory white paired with optic white. Couple with extrapolated proportions; the collection did appear to be straight out of a cosmic landing or perhaps gearing up for a cosmic adventure.

Though only taking a small portion of their dominantly dark collection, Ann Demeulemeester and Barbara Bui brought lightness with notable head-to-toe looks in white.

Suiting Up

Menswear is not going to leave our closets any time soon so men should not even try. This season, there were several renditions of the menswear look, majority of which were done with looser silhouettes.

Emmanuel Ungaro feminized the suit and removed all structure by styling his woman in oversized jackets and pants in bright prints and colours. While Ungaro was hardly form fitting, Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing envisioned suits with a slight military hint and cut. His suits had a belt that resembled a uniform cumber band in accompanying colours. As restricting as that sounds, the construction was without doubt flawless.

For more fashion week coverage:

New York Fashion Week Fall 2014-15

Milan Fashion Week Fall 2014-15 

London Fashion Week Fall 2014-15

Tarandip Kaur