What to watch at Paris Fashion Week Spring 2023 – WWD

Paris – For Spring 2023, Paris Fashion Week will showcase 105 brands over nine days, including the debuts of these six designers.

Anna October

Six months after fleeing to Paris in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, designer Anna October returned to Kyiv, putting the final touches on her spring 2023 collection, which she will show on Friday.

To sum up her state of mind, October hosts the words of British poet Vita Sackville-West: “Small pleasures must make up for great tragedies, so I boldly speak of gardens between wars.”

In that spirit, she describes the set as “Anna’s Garden of Happiness,” shaking up the wild land she planned to turn into a garden shortly before the conflict.

Flowers and plants are translated into breezy, flirty layers and hand-stitched elements, inspired by ancient window dressings she found in the archives of the Ivan Honchar Museum of Culture in Kyiv.

“I like that it is original [and] These are roots, a touch of my culture and identity,” said Oktober, who hails from the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, where she enrolled at the prestigious Grekov Art School before moving to Odessa, where she studied sewing and pattern cutting.

October says her broader focus is cementing her 12-year-old label’s reputation as a “day-ready brand,” though she says it’s “hard to talk about femininity without being clichéd.” She’s approaching this challenge by “presenting the story you’re living” and seeing clothes as “a way to make yourself happy with how you look.”

After making the shortlist for the 2014 LVMH Prize for Young Designers, the brand is now carried by more than 30 retailers worldwide, including Sens, Moda Operandi, Galeries Lafayette and 24S for its more sophisticated dresses up to €800.

Moving forward, she plans to continue dividing her time between Kyiv and Paris, where she plans to grow her brand internationally.

Boutet Solanes

Newlyweds may discuss living arrangements or getting a pet. For French designer Constance Butte and Spanish photographer José-Maria Solanes, the conversation quickly turned to starting a fashion label together.

“I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t there [my own] The brand had a very good emotional connection and it made sense,” says Bouitt, a graduate of Esmode and Institut Francois de la Mode, to distinguish herself from her previous name, which focused on printed silk shirts. and dresses, launched in 2011 and closed in 2015.

“There’s nothing more exciting than adding another brain to the mix,” she added.

Cue Boutet Solanes, who takes a genderless approach, is both interested in “dressing a person rather than defining what femininity means,” and is “a bit sassy, ​​single-minded in what she does and always interested.” something”

Butt said the brand’s aesthetic was inspired by muse like Mia Farrow in “Alice,” “Gorillas in the Mist” and Tilda Swinton in Sigourney Weaver. “[They] We bring with us a sense of independence, freedom and self-reliance,” she said. “They enjoy their time on their own, they’re connected to themselves. They’re strong that way.”

The fourth collection focuses on stones and shapes with mineral-inspired details, from light nodding to mica inclusions to large pockets to “store your special finds,” showcasing Butte’s ability to collect stones and minerals while she’s at it. Out and about.

For Thursday’s spring 2023 presentation, the pair envisioned an arrangement inspired by archaeological sites to “present what they dig up” for the season, aided by live models and a film projection of the collection.

Florentina Leitner

Florentina Leitner brings Austria to Paris when she makes her first physical presentation on October 2nd at the Cultural and Creative Center 3537.

Educated at the Vienna Fashion Institute Heitsendorff, knitwear and the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts, she was making her debut at Dries van Noten’s studio when she began to attract a group of graduates.

“After four months, I got more attention from the press and stores to see if they could buy it [it]” she told WWD. “So the question was, am I going to try it, or am I going to stay in this safe environment with good design work.”

She took the leap in February 2021 and hasn’t looked back since.

Celebs like Kylie Jenner, Lady Gaga, Charli XCX and Sita Abellan step into the floral cat and soft gorilla sweater coat with an op-art twist, or the melt-in-the-mouth sunglasses – a must-have – in collaboration with Belgian eyewear brand Komono. “Leitner, who always liked the ‘full scene’ in Antwerp.

Leitner has been invited to digitally showcase her work on stage at New York and London Fashion Weeks and to open the 2021 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin. Next up is Paris, her fourth effort, “Oh Dear!”

The deer print featured in the collection was created in collaboration with Dutch artist and graphic designer Roop van Mierlo, while Leitner reintroduces knitwear. Academy.

The label retails from €260 for sunglasses to €500 for silk slippers and up to €1,000 for a fur coat stuffed with a 3D flower made from toymaker Stiff’s famous “teddy bear” mohair.

Paula Canovas del Vas

Paula Canovas del Vas, a semi-finalist for the 2022 LVMH Prize, presented her collection on Thursday at the official Paris Fashion Week program, a testament to the mysterious ways of life.

“It’s funny because it all started in Paris,” says the Spanish-born, London-based graduate of Central Saint Martins, whose schedule includes stints at Maison Margiela and Gucci.

After her 2018 graduation, the head of the master’s program introduced her to the director of the Palais de Tokyo, Vittoria Matarese, who said: “She was devastated. The resulting exhibition caught the eye of Kanye West and led to a three-year consulting career that saw Canovas del Vas working on Yeezy, Sunday Service and even West’s short film directed by Spike Jonze.

Self-described as “very product-oriented,” she puts the accent on comfort, even for her most whimsical designs, such as her edgy horn sandals. Her label has 35 stockists, including Sens, Browns of London and Maxfield in Los Angeles.

For her Paris debut, she will invite guests to a presentation at the Instituto Cervantes Cultural Center on Peter Greenway’s 1989 film “Cook, Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” and artist Sophie Calle’s film Nodding. monochromatic diet.

Expect more of her signature Canovas del Vas “learning that repetition is key,” including a sneaker version of the Diablo shoe. Her clothing focuses on “helping women feel comfortable. [and] Good About Themselves” thanks to strategically designed cords that sculpt in proportion and size.

She hopes people will feel enlightened after experiencing her universe, but “at the end of the day, we’re an industry that creates products and experiences. “Those shoes are the destiny of whatever journey they take people on, or whatever experience they have,” she said.

Ruhan

“Design is the only thing I’ve ever learned,” said Chinese designer Ruhan Ni, but she still had plenty of luck to make it to her first Paris Fashion Week show on Wednesday.

In the year A 2020 graduate of Parsons School of Design, she was working at a high-end multi-brand retailer in Tribeca when she participated in the China Institute of Fashion Design competition, where she met Tasha Liu, the fashion retailer’s founder and emerging talent supporter. Program Labelhood, and Coco Wang, director of marketing and communications at Lane Crawford.

“[If they] “I wouldn’t have pushed myself, I wouldn’t have my own brand,” said Ni, who produced a small collection for fall 2021 that will be sold to eight retailers in China.

The designer returned to Shanghai to work on her spring 2022 collection and signed on for international representation with the Bonn showroom in Paris.

The brand counts 23 domestic sales points and six international points, which carry handcrafted or laser-cut textile models priced from €300 to €1,200.

Ruhan’s “effortlessly chic contemporary minimalism” also caught the eye of entrepreneur Wendy Yu and Yu Award judges for the 2022 Creative Impact Award, along with an entry from the French Fashion Federation.

For her Spring 2023 collection, Ni was inspired by “wax as a medium” and candles. “The first image came to me because Renaissance painters used to paint candles [working] In caves or in churches, with very dim lights,” she explains of how she translated fresco painting techniques into a textile version.

First introduced for spring 2022, accessories will also be included, although Nye is cautious about expanding its categories too quickly. She has made a variety of candles with a Chinese based lifestyle.

Especially in the age of social media, it is important to follow a lifestyle with clothes. [because] Everyone wants to know where or what occasion that outfit will suit,” she said.

Pressit

“I can’t, I have to create,” French designer Vincent Garnier Presat told WWD after his 2021 debut. He started Presciat, named after his mother’s maiden name, when France’s first lockdown put him out of work.

His Spring 2023 collection, to be unveiled on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m., marks his first program slot at Paris Fashion Week. “It’s Marilyn Monroe,” said the ghost. [meeting] Iggy Pop in the 1950s,” he said.

“I love old Hollywood glamour,” he explained. Those were creatively rich years for women, but they were also very oppressive. Similarly, in the Victorian era, he draws on a period of “perfect beauty, between release and attachment.”

Those influences are subverted in various ways, including corsets or the use of flexible movie dolls as symbols of change. “Now it feels like a society where everything is going so wrong and you always need to grow a new skin,” he explained.

Presciat’s designs are handcrafted, reflected in the range’s pricing. Sweaters and sweatshirts retail for around €600, but a double-collared leather jacket with detachable sleeves retails for €1,500 – or more if you want more sleeves.

For those who want to go beyond the stock at La Collection Particulière, H.Lorenzo and the magical Paris-based fashion platform, his iconic designs start at €12,000.

Famous faces who hit Garnier Pressiat for a red carpet look included American model Alton Mason, who stepped out in a strong-shouldered jumpsuit at the Cannes Film Festival, and Charlotte Rampling, who wore a cocoon-shaped opera coat.

The latest to join the Presyat clan is the Megan T stallion. Her “Grateful” video, featuring her wrestling in a black and white gothic dress, drew rave reviews.