Here’s everything you need to know from the first three days of Paris Fashion Week.
Dior SS25
Dior
For the Dior SS25 women’s collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s ambitious objective was to “recapitulate the meaning of the garment, as if each model has been given the chance to speak and reveal the work preceding its own construction.” For this project, the designer was inspired by the house archives, specifically the Amazone dress, created by Christian Dior for autumn-winter 1951-1952. The reference point for the dress was a legendary female figure, known for her strength of spirit, which for Grazia Chiuri’s new collection, is examined through a lens of autonomous, courageous femininity.
Saint Laurent
Anthony Vaccarello returned to Saint Laurent’s home on the Left Bank of Paris at Rue de Bellechasse for his Summer 25 show this week. For his latest collection, he was inspired by the personal style of the house’s founder, Yves Saint Laurent. As Vaccarello explains in the notes which accompanied the collection “The relevance of Saint Laurent clothes is distilled from the independent attitude of the woman who wears them. Her contradictions reflect Yves Saint Laurent’s own persona, in which artful sophistication coexisted with instinctual desire.”
Rabanne
The Rabanne SS25 collection by Julien Dossena was revealed in Paris this afternoon, with one of the most talked about pieces at the show being the house’s Handcrafted 1969 Golden Bag, which is set to become the most expensive bag in the world, with a price tag of just over 1 million dirhams (250,000 euros). Part of Rabanne’s Artisans Editions series, the bag is made from Italy’s famed Murano glass and took 100 hours for the French jeweller Arthus Bertrand and the house to create. Elsewhere in the collection there were deconstructed striped shirts and power blazers as well as metallic gowns inspired by the eponymous founder’s designs from the 1960s.
Balmain
Olivier Rousteing merged the worlds of fashion and beauty for his Balmain SS25 show. The designer recently launched the house’s first perfume range, Les Éternels de Balmain, which inspired some of his designs for the collection. Elsewhere, he looked to his own archive at the house, revisiting the theatrical blazer designs which were part of his early tenure at Balmain.
