Cher appeared at the end of Balmain at Paris Fashion Week

Olivier Rousteing has confirmed that it is one of the biggest shows in international fashion – again, not a show, but a festival for Balmain in a huge stadium. Of course, Paris Fashion Week’s greatest celebrity moment had to be captured here – when the designer finally walked out with Cher on his arm. The 76-year-old Oscar winner kicked the boards all smiles – to boos from the crowd – in a marbled spandex bodysuit, plunging neckline, stage sweaters and the house’s famous shoulders. “Having a great time on stage, feeling great,” she tweeted shortly after.

Balmain says it’s celebrating the best in food, music and fashion in a pop-up village – the Jean Bouin stadium in western Paris – that’s more used to hosting rugby matches than spandex suits. About 10,000 tickets were given away to the public as long as they made a charitable donation.

Don’t forget Balmain was a fashion show.

Amidst the razzmatazz, some guests could be forgiven for forgetting the main thing of the event is the clothes. Ready-to-wear fused with couture, the looks had some memorable moments – the fruit of Balmain’s design teams foraging for organic materials in the forest.

A unique bustier is created with the bark of chestnut trees, while basket weaving is made from scraps and field materials, all softened in water for an ethnic look.

But the show was also an emotional and cultural exploration for Ras Rusting — a man who has been vocal about his adoption and recently discovered his parents are Horn of Africa.

“Overall, the African influence is definitely easy to spot,” says the designer. “(The discovery) only increased my interest in the beauty, traditions and designs of this region.”

For Courreges, a circular sandy runway with a column of sand falling down the middle evokes the film Sands of Time – or “Dune”. Off-kilter and slightly off-kilter musical performances in the soundtrack gave the show a clean, stripped-down vibe.

Courages has become a brand that expresses a signature sense of style, and designer Nicolas de Felice likes to infuse the fashion into the atmosphere.

Spring-summer fashions started with a light and sporty look, sporting a well-worn volume white shirt. Models sometimes had bare feet or bare shoes. De Felice used the runway to turn fashion forward – snipaways, toggles, shiny space material and destruction – with everyday items such as a jean jacket, denim skirt or flared trousers. A sports vest, for example, is given a kinky spin with its scrappy materials.

In the year It’s an approach that works well with this generation’s defining brand, founded in 1961 by André Courages and his wife Coquelin, synonymous with space-age aesthetics.

The art of the invitation

The email age and increased local awareness seem to have left little mark on the fashion industry’s archaic invitational system.

Season after season, gasoline-guzzling couriers would criss-cross Paris to personally deliver more elaborate, often handmade, invitations.

Top houses are rotated to find the best or most imaginative idea, which often hints at the theme of the runway collection.

At Lowe’s invitation, a bright red tropical flower arrived in a post described in the flower dictionary as an anthurium. The bottom of the flower stem is attached to a modern moisture capsule to keep the flower alive during fashion week.

The Saint Laurent invitation, on the other hand, was a stylish black patent leather bag with “YSL” embossed on the top, hidden inside the display card.

Van nut dries

The Belgian fashion master is back on form for spring, putting together a collection that’s not normally seen in a collection that looks elegant in its looseness.

The fashion forward gathers in all black – an oversized men’s tuxedo worn on the bare chest, or an Asian crossover coat – suddenly turns into bright sequins, pastels, then ruffles and florals in a 64-look collection.

Artistic theatrics abounded: a lace-like black top had stirring ribs, all the while looking very Elizabethan. Women’s models are deliberately chosen alongside the vast array of men’s clothing available in women’s wardrobes.

The running theme seems to be softness — floppy layers of fabric, plush cushions dotting the warehouse floor and generous proportions in sleeves, skirts and billowing pants.

This is Van Noten, the original, having fun.

He was dressed in a curvy outfit by Jun Takahashi’s brand Undercover.

The streetwear-wearing Japanese designer has gone crazy this season, shrugging off the shoulders of a bright yellow oversized tuxedo, tucking into a dressy white shirt, or pants and lapels over another sophisticated double-breasted jacket.

Just like the previous seasons, it felt like a Japanese anime presence. Here, there was a cartoonish vibe to the double top hairstyles of several models.

Statement T-shirts with “Love” and “Dream” emblazoned on them added to the animated vibe.