All the world’s a stage. And all the models merely players; they have their exits and entrances; and a designer in his time plays many parts. If Shakespeare were writing now, he’d no doubt note the numerous parts played by Pharrell Williams, rock star, rapper, music producer, dandy and latterly men’s creative director of Louis Vuitton, the key opening show of Paris Fashion Week menswear season, which ended Sunday night.
Italy may be where most designer menswear is actually manufactured, but Paris remains the capital of new ideas, as this six-day season showed — with endless technical advances, a vast cast of characters and scores of re-inventions of the man’s wardrobe.
The best of Paris Men’s Fashion Week
Louis Vuitton
Bernard Arnault loves a big show and the CEO of LVMH certainly got a mega display this season at Vuitton, his biggest marque, where Williams dreamed up a sunset display featuring a giant wave, from whose barrel the cast marched out over a spit of sand. A Big Wednesday moment that took one month to build for a 20-minute show on Tuesday night, the spray cooled down the audience during the hottest week in French history.
Throughout, surfers – attired in crisp two-button jackets and billowing pleated pants – carried sleek surfboards decorated with LV’s stylized logo flowers.
“Surfing is a universal lifestyle that blends cultures and beliefs,” explained Williams who happily mashed up street with sartorial – checkered-flag cardigans and satchels; dyed snakeskin baseball jackets; Aran cable sweaters made of pale gray mink. Pharrell’s latest Vuitton trunks featured Arcadian images of octopi and turtles.
The show built to a dramatic finale, backed up by an 80-piece orchestra, gospel choir and A-list front row. Arnault and his wife Hélène beamed as they sat between French basketball star Victor Wembanyama and actor Jeremy Allen White. Attired in yellow sunglasses and a leather LV baseball cap – like the one he sent to senior editors pre-show – Pharrell embraced his wife and kids before almost genuflecting before Bernard… much to the boss’s delight.
Dior
Williams is sometimes criticized for lacking what French critics term as deuxième degré, meaning he doesn’t take the disparate parts of his ideas and designs somewhere really new (to the second level) . That certainly could not be said about his stable mate designer Jonathan Anderson. Every single look for LVMH-owned Dior – where the Northern Irishman is the creative honcho – conjured up some fashion vision.
His opening looks were perfectly cut double-breasted suits, though made in plissé cotton so they were semi-transparent and shimmered. His new dressing gown – in Donegal tweed, cotton or silk – finished with tuxedo shawl collars represents the new idea of debonair.
Elsewhere he whipped up frock coats in ranch-hand suede or striped cotton, finished with mother of pearl buttons; or overhauled Monsieur Christian Dior’s signature bar jacket, completed with tentacles of fabric. His shoes and slippers were in embroidered velvet, or brushed suede finished with Dior’s much favored florals.
Staged inside the beautiful Nissi Camondo mansion museum, the show (switched from afternoon to 9AM in the heat wave) was a great statement of edgy self-confident style. “Partying today, going to new festivals, a refined masculinity that connects with the feminine. And a little Eton,” the Northern Irish designer explained about his influences to Elite Traveler post-show.
Berluti
For Le Petit Prince among us, Berluti have developed a series of small bags, wallets and briefcases exquisitely etched with images and overpainted with phrases from Saint-Exupéry’s classic tale. While in tailoring, Berluti’s impeccable leather jackets were given a rare new patina, as if they were garment dyed. The house’s version of the now de rigueur field jacket with three patch pockets was the best we’ve seen in Paris.
Christian Louboutin
A second menswear collection for the house by actor, singer and rapper Jaden Smith, and a second conceptual art display. After a Dadaist vision evoking Greek mythology in Montparnasse in January, this season we entered a recreation of the Neolithic stones of pre-historic Carnac in Brittany, built inside the Bourse de Paris. Painted, inevitably, in Louboutin’s red.
“You are now entering the ruins of an Ancient Kingdom. Beyond these doors you enter the realm of Christian Louboutin,” read a menhir outside the former stock market. Inside one discovered Mark Rothko-worthy degradé red lacquered bags and dance shoes; wingtip boots where the pattern is made in leather lace or Salvador Dali style tango shoes with five toes in precise squares.
AMI
Those who are keen to dress with a certain understated je ne sais quoi will find lots to wear in AMI. Presented as a co-ed show inside the Fondation Cartier in Montparnasse, the show attracted a slew of Paris insiders from actress Clotilde Courau to singer / actress Lou Doillon, wearing clothes tagged with AMI’s ubiquitous logo. For guys, tailored track pants, see-through nylon cargo pants and dark blazers with wide red back panels all looked very Rive Gauche.
Vetements
The prize for the most surprising casting in Paris went to Vetements, where Sharon Stone marched out in leather pants, giant white jacket and tie worn in reverse. She was joined by Britney Spears’ sons Sean and Jayden in a bizarre show inside an underground garage.
Issey Miyake
No cultivated gentleman’s wardrobe should be without some item from the house of Issey Miyake. The great man may have passed in 2022, but he has been nobly served by his successors – the trio of Sen Kawahara, Yuki Itakura and Nobutaka Kobayashi – who create its IM label.
Entitled In Praise of Bamboo Shadows, the display in a disused college in the 5th arrondissement starred fabulous coats with branches and leaves prints created by the paper stencils used in katazome kimono dyeing; followed by voluminous Bloom Nylon coats in washed out leaf-like colors.
Most remarkable: some incredible basket jacquard weaves made with actual bamboo strips were cut into space age patrician blousons and sculptural pants.
The triumvirate’s abiding idea was of nomadic chic, a voluminous offering for global elite travelers featuring the most innovative menswear fabrics. And their shapes are something else, as explained in their program. “Silhouettes (should) sway like waves,” insisted the trio.
Givenchy
No show, but an impressive menswear debut presented on stockman mannequins by LVMH-owned Givenchy, where Sarah Burton presented raffish Demob double-breasted suits worn with detachable collar shirts; natty leather baseball jackets with sleeves finished in nylon; and plongé leather rugby jerseys.
Gentleman searching for true menswear couture could also find fantastic silk coats or bomber jackets embroidered in fabric wisteria or chrysanthemums. The white suit worn by Timothée Chalamet to this year’s Oscars was also on display.
Junya Watanabe
Great event dressing, rock-star gear and entrance-making cool from Junya Watanabe. A wonderful sense of truly new fashion, and insider jokes, such as taking Coco Chanel’s famous four patch-pocket jacket, and morphing it into an athletic top, reducing jackets so much they became scarves, or transforming filament jackets into gilets.
There were also collaborations sportswear label Kappa, for whom Junya dreamed up athletic pants in denim, worsted fabrics, and turned work clothes into snappy canvas looks finished with the DHL logo.
Grace Wales Bonner
Wales Bonner will debut her first menswear for Hermès in January 2027. Currently enjoying maternity leave, her own brand nonetheless displayed her signature collection in a St Germain apartment.
It was a striking new collection by the brilliant young English designer, featuring an array of kicky tailoring thanks to a collab’ with Anderson & Sheppard of Savile Row, along with a new take on the trackpant in a perforated mesh with triple stripes on the side, and her own WB logo. Perfect travel gear for the private jet owner who wants to look far from corporate. One could also only admire the great new wing-collared shirts, cut like a jersey and joined at the neckline with three pearl buttons. Made in bright white or interesting stripes, both looked great.
Hermès
The absence of designer doesn’t have to be a disaster. Case in point, the very fine new ideas at Hermès. While awaiting Wales Bonner’s arrival, the brand’s in-house studio turned in an impressive collection of quality, gentlemanly ‘quiet luxury’ looks. Beginning with some lustrous pony skin, jerkins and jackets, in washed out gray, and continuing with field jackets in perforated caramel leather. Best of all, was the revival of the brand’s signature silk shirts, printed with bridles, reins, buckles and horse motifs, extending to a very charming cowboy version.
Willy Chavarria
Few designers anywhere have had as much impact this decade as Willy Chavarria, a Mexican-American son of farm workers who puts Latino culture at the center of his fashion house and style.
Chavarria is a bizarre blend of devilment and devout, a revolutionary who admires the Pope and puts Catholic imagery in all his shows. This season he invited guests to the center of French Communism, Oscar Niemeyer’s famed futurist party HQ in north Paris. Then entitled his show Communion.
He dressed a cast that included Romeo Beckham in Latin Lothario oversized zoot suits, silk blazers with matching pajama pants in Scarlet Pimpernel stripes, and matinee-idol white tuxedos worn with shorts. Most guys in this co-ed show had exposed underwear because, Willy explained backstage, “in this heatwave, I had to style and edit this collection, dressed in my own underwear!”
Commas
For a smart take on cool, casual weekend style, one should consider the Australian brand Commas. Last month, it staged a great show on Sydney’s Tamarama Beach, beside Bondi, where wild wind, rain and spray led to an epic event. Field jackets in dense linen, roomy ribbed woolen unisex sweatshirts, and perfectly printed tye-dye shirts were stand-out pieces — as too, was a one-of-a-kind Joseph Beuys-like jumper by John Macarthur, the famed Australian knitwear maker, which one can custom order. And fun t-shirts, including one reading Studio Commas Tamarama, in the same script and shape of a look worn by the late great David Hockney.
