Best of Paris Fashion Week Spring Summer 2021 season. Review by Eleonora de Gray, Editor-in-Chief of RUNWAY MAGAZINE.
Paris was competing with New York and Milan about how to organize in the best way fashion week, make it safe and secure for the designers, all participants and the people who’ll be able to attend. Fashion Federation in New York decided to go mostly for digital presentation, only few very private shows were organized by the designers at their own homes.
Milan obviously won this “safety” competition. The masks, social distancing (2m between the seats), negative tests for all participants and the gusts at the entrance – perfect organization. Fashion Federation in Paris (Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode) organized the fashion week…. well, how it’s been always organized in Paris. Federation announced that 1000 people are perfectly allowed to be present at the show, even French government forbid all public gatherings for more than 12 people. No one really cared about social distancing, and of course there were no negative tests demands. Although not too many designers organized the real shows, many decided “go safety”, “go digital”, and do the online presentations.
Christian Dior, Balmain and Chanel and couple of emerging designers organized “real” shows, plus of course fashion salons. Salons were empty, no one visited them, as public already long time ago lost interest to emerging brands repeating, recopying and reproducing each other, and now professionals, experts, media and buyers are no longer interested in overprized badly made clothes.
The result of these efforts are… zero, not a big fat one, invisible one. The scheduled online presentations didn’t draw much attention either. Brands, who are so eager to buy fake followers on instagram and other social media networks, didn’t get closer to reality, not much viewers were noted on the instagram or youtube. Perhaps it is a time to face it – only very small community, 200-300 people are really interested to watch, and only 5% of them are actually have desire to buy.
See Best of the Spring Summer 2021 looks HERE
Christian Dior opened the fashion week, and showed Italian looks, looks repeated Dolce & Gabbana and Valentino designs, spiced up by peasant tasteless looks, during the modern, very contemporary choral, which no one was able to handle for more than 2 mon, plus pseudo-artistic approach.
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| Christian Dior Spring Summer 2021 by RUNWAY MAGAZINE |
Olivier Rousteing for Balmain Spring Summer 2021 season decided to battle his habit to copy and presented something which no one expected – a collection “dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig”. Heigh-Ho, he actually found the way, for ones, this ones, to use traditional Balmain logo on the garments and bags, and presented the looks he actually created himself, and the Pinocchio looks he actually loves: oversized long jackets and shorts panties.
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| Balmain Spring Summer 2021 by RUNWAY MAGAZINE |
The hit of this season was Spring Summer 2021 collection presented by Rick Owens from Milan. He organized the show in Milan, to be safe, knowing that Paris is not ready and not willing or capable to compel to health issues, and projected it to Paris digitally. Can you imagine Rick Owens pink? No, you can’t. But here it is – pink, fresh and beautiful, full of hope and actually elegance. In all ways it feels like the heart of Rick Owens during these dark times filled up with the hope.
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| Rick Owens Spring Summer 2021 by RUNWAY MAGAZINE |
Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood Spring Summer 2021 created an ode to Vivienne Westwood, romantic and profound ” from Chinese Tanka to English fog”. Beautiful, very profound digital presentation gave this fascination to this collection maybe because of this beautiful ode to the queen Vivienne, the lady of his heart. And of course “without further ado”, discussions, conferences and investment, Vivienne Westwood Spring Summer 2021 collection presented another sustainability creative project. N.B Fabrics: Recycled, Eco, Bio, Organic, FSC Certified.
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| Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood Spring Summer 2021 by RUNWAY MAGAZINE |
Chanel wanted to present “Hollywood” collection for this Spring Summer 2021 season. The look apparently reserved for the stars, who’ll wear them for the next Award ceremony. Everything was designed to support this “cinematic” view: huge letters ‘CHANEL” in the manner of famous “Hollywood” letters in California, colorful simple pants and jackets, ti-shirts with letter “5” in the form of the street tags, colorful shirts with photos of neon lights. Chanel Spring-Summer 2021 Ready-to-Wear collection imagined by Virginie Viard, inspired by the House’s privileged relationship with actresses, both on and off-screen.
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| Chanel Spring Summer 2021 by RUNWAY MAGAZINE |
Nicolas Ghesquiere for Louis Vuitton for Spring Summer 2021 Ready-to-Wear Paris Fashion Week season actually presented a concept. The fashion show took place in renewed and opened La Samaritaine. Movie “Wings of Desire” of Wim Wenders, and repeated image of Bruno Ganz, an Angel staying on the roof of high building in Berlin right after the Second Word War, is a leitmotiv of Louise Vuitton Spring Summer 2021 collection by Nicolas Ghesquiere.
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| Louis Vuitton Spring Summer 2021 – Bruno Ganz Wings of Desire by RUNWAY MAGAZINE |
Maison Margiela Spring Summer 2021 “Still With A Loving Kiss”. John Galliano presented a movie at Paris Fashion week. Artistic dancing, backstage artisanal work and interview – all of these mix-match laid down as a sustainability concept of Maison Margiela. John Galliano told about his passion to discover old pieces on flee-markets all over the world, replicate them, re-create them, so the garments could have a new life and live again. He proposed new recycling project of the House.
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| Maison Margiela Spring Summer 2021 – John Galliano by RUNWAY MAGAZINE |
And basically there’s nothing more to say about Paris Fashion Week Spring Summer 2021 season. No more creative concepts noted, and to speak about massive fiasco has no longer any interest.
