Stunning runway collections from the A/W 2023 shows

Meter-high camellia flowers, priceless Roman sculptures, colorful confetti cubes – exotic and majestic, this season’s runway collections provided as many visual inspirations as the collections themselves. From blockbusters to sprawling Hollywood soundstages, to intimate gatherings filled with vintage furniture, we round up the best show locations from A/W 2023 Fashion Month, which wrapped up in Paris earlier this week. highlights).

The best runway collections of A/W 2023

Prada

(Image credit: Courtesy of Prada)

Just at the Prada menswear show in January, showgoers were greeted by a small bunker-like space installed in Fondazione Prada’s Deposito. As the show continued, the ceiling rose with sunflowers hanging from the ceiling (for the men’s show, high-art chandeliers were revealed instead of flowers). “The volume and atmosphere of the room seamlessly transitions from a dark, low-ceilinged room to a warm, statuesque living room-like space and back again,” said designers OMA, specializing in clothing.

Chanel

(Image credit: Courtesy of Chanel)

For the romantic A/W 2023 collection, Virginie Viard looked to the ever-present Chanel logo, the camellia flower, the white flower adorning the collection’s clothes and accessories in many ways. The flower was blown to a large size as a curved centerpiece and fresh camellia was left on every seat in attendance. Also in the scene – built in the Grand Palais ephemera – there were raised screens, playing. Who are you Polly Mago?A film inspired by Inez and Vinoodh (2023 Wallpaper* Design Award Jury) starring actress Nana Komasu, one of the house’s ambassadors.

Gucci

(Image credit: Courtesy of Gucci)

This year’s venue for Gucci’s show – created by the in-house team (Alessandro) – is an office lobby full of elevators and circular carpet pits, which he says is the epitome of the collection itself. Michel’s successor, Sabato de Sarno, will not present his first collection until September 2023). Drawing on the memories of various designers, some of whom have been at the house for decades, the A/W 2023 collection from It fuses elements from the 1990s and 2000s into what the collection notes calls ‘a lively conversation between past and future’. ‘Elevators transport the collection through the building to the runway,’ says the house, ‘the creative process behind any new idea, from the archive where concepts are ignited… to the runway where new expressions are revealed.’

Bottega Veneta

(Image credit: Courtesy of Bottega Veneta)

For his A/W 2023 collection, Mathieu Blazey said he wanted to create a line-up where ‘techniques, motifs, characters and creatures of the past travel through space and time to speak to the present and the future’ (this was a sign that his ‘Italian’ drew on the diversity of Italian style and craftsmanship). the final part of the trilogy). The mood of the ages is captured in the sculptures that adorn the space on the carpet – a pair of Roman bronze runners from 1BC and the Italian Futurist Umberto Boccioni. Special forms of continuity in space (1913) both feature figures in motion, created in nearly two thousand variations—a fitting metaphor for the expansion of Blazey’s project into his own 81-look collection.

Lowe

(Image credit: Courtesy of Lowe’s)

Jonathan Anderson commissioned Italian artist Lara Favaret to create colorful confetti cubes. The British designer spoke of a new sense of minimalism and visual clarity at both Lowe’s and the eponymous brand JW Anderson. It’s the idea of ​​looking at the ‘facts’ after the show – it looks like something in the room, then we have an online audience, it’s after the show. ‘My biggest obsession at the moment is… how do you improve a language but not get caught up in the language you’ve built?’

Ferragamo

(Image credit: courtesy of Ferragamo)

British designer Maximilian Davies’ second collection of Ferragamo’s collection, which was presented in a larger format than the original, saw Milan’s Mico convention center transform into monolithic curved walls around the attendees’ seating. The blockbuster collection evoked those in Hollywood science fiction movies; Indeed, Davies’s cinematic set seemed to transform the high femininity and beauty of Golden Age Hollywood (particularly those featuring Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren, both of whom wore shoes by house founder Salvatore Ferragamo) into a new definition of beauty. He thought it was ‘alien futurism’.

Acne studios

(Image credit: Courtesy of Acne Studio)

‘[There was] Wedge shoes, giant poles, swamp people, glitter,’ says Shona Heath about the unique inspirations for the wallpaper*, a collection of designer creations from Acne Studios, which feature exotic plant-like sculptures that decorate spaces inspired by the magic and legends of the forest. . ‘I asked Shona to create a dark forest landscape with a creative feel,’ says Jonny Johansson, Creative Director of Acne Studios, who found his collection inspired by Swedish nature. ‘I love how forests are always changing, growing and changing.’

Sport Max

(Image credit: Courtesy of Sportmax)

Presenting in a former industrial space in Milan, Sportmax filled the venue with a wide array of vintage chairs – from Victorian armchairs to modern sofas – where attendees sat to view the collection (the brand dubbed it ‘Grange Garage’). As stated in the accompanying notes, they reflected the unique sensibility of the collection, which had reference points in ‘a continuous game of contrasts between bourgeois elegance, antique chic and glam androgyny’.

Miu Miu

(Image credit: courtesy of Miu Miu)

Miuccia Prada says her A/W 2023 collection is about ‘ways of seeing’ – ‘I want to know how people look at things, how they think… why people are attracted to certain ideas, why others hate them,’ she explained. A statement issued after the event. There was a sense of reflection in the set, with a raised platform running through the space of the Palais d’Eina, built to ‘aid observation’. A series of screenplays were also presented for the show by South Korean artist Geumhyung Jeong, who explores the relationship between her own body and clothing, inviting and holding our attention, demanding our attention.