Couture Fashion Week has just wrapped up in Paris, and, although all shows and presentations had to take place behind closed doors due to the current lockdown rules in place in France, there was still plenty of excitement around the events and the breathtaking creations that were revealed.
While some designers chose to present their collections digitally, either via fashion films or shoots, or both, others hosted audience-free fashion shows, one of which was notably star-studded.
Below, we round up the highlights from the shows and presentations. Here is everything you need to see from couture spring/summer 2021, a week of shows that seemed to bring the buzz back into fashion.
Fendi
It was always going to be a bit of a moment, Kim Jones' debut collection for Fendi, and the designer made sure it was a big one. Bringing in some of the biggest names in the business to model the collection (from Naomi Campbell, Demi Moore and Kate Moss to Cara Delevingne, Bella Hadid and Adwoa Aboah), Jones made a serious splash with his first fashion show at the Italian house.
His designs took inspiration from the British sensibility of the Bloomsbury Group while paying homage to the storied history of Fendi. He specifically was influenced by the visual language of Bernini's marbles, Virgina Woolf's time-travelling and the gender-blurring novel Orlando.
And, when it came to the casting and the show set, it was all about the importance of family – both real and chosen. This was celebrated through the cast, who each inhabited glass vitrines transformed into rooms of their own.
"Fendi represents artisanal quality of the highest order, and it is all about family," he says. "It is in its third generation with a Fendi at its helm, and I am guest starring while bringing in the fourth. Here, I am surrounded by strong, powerful women who I love and respect, and want to bring their energy into what I do."
Viktor & Rolf
Unable to host a normal catwalk show, Viktor & Rolf chose instead to put on a 'couture rave'. This involved presenting a collection that had both a "gritty edge", but was one which also transported those watching into a fantasy land of "lighthearted escape", the designers explained of the show.
"Traditionally 'beautiful' couture references are put into a raw, young context," they said. "Haute couture meets underground party. The mood is irreverent and almost casual but always elegant: an antidote to doom scrolling."
Alexis Mabille
"This collection is my amorous gaze for divine women," Alexis Mabille explains of his spring/summer 2021 collection, which was presented via a catwalk show this week. The designer was inspired by the daughter of Psyche and Eros, the goddess Voluptas, who was known for a beauty that was both "striking and emotional" as well as "earthy and celestial", he says. Imagining her clothing came through in designs that enhanced her femininity and sensuality – fluid shapes, floral prints, delicate embroidery and striking silhouettes.
Armani Privé
Presented for the first time at the Palazzo Orsini, in the heart of Milan, to no audience, the spring/summer 2021 Armani Privé show was, in a sense, one like no other. And yet, the designer presented a typically colourful, elegant and uplifting couture collection, which focused on the joy and skill in couture (and no doubt made a few Hollywood actresses feel desperate to get back on the red carpet).
“Couture is rooted in fashion history,” Armani said in his show notes. “It represents the pinnacle of creativity and sartorial skill, but is a world available only to very few. Today, through the democracy of the Internet, we are able to offer a front row seat to everyone.”
Valentino
Pierpaolo Piccioli always manages to bring some magic to couture fashion week, even when there is no live audience in attendance, and this season was no exception. The designer chose to pay tribute to "the rituals, the process, and the values of couture", which he believes to be timeless.
"They celebrate the human: the mind that conceives and the hand that creates and gives value," he said of couture in the show notes. "Through a work process that sits above time, they produce timeless objects moulded on the individual."
Some of the favourite looks from the collection featured bright colours, towering platform heels, beautiful pleats, striking shapes and plenty of sequins.
Chanel
"I knew we couldn't organise a big show, that we would have to invent something else, so I came up with the idea of a small cortege that would come down the stairs of the Grand Palais and pass beneath arches of flowers, like a family celebration, a wedding," creative directive Virginie Viard said of the inspiration behind the SS21 couture collection, which was presented via a show (to no audience - other than a handful of Chanel ambassadors) in Paris.
The clothes that came down the catwalk exuded this celebratory message in unexpected ways with flower crowns, bow ties, chic tuxedo-inspired looks being paired alongside tweed two-pieces, tiered skirts, embellished waistcoats and beautiful gowns.
"I'm always thinking about what women would like to have in their wardrobe today," the designer added.
Giambattista Valli
"While in ready-to-wear collections, every silhouette narrates a chapter of the same book, in haute couture, every creation tells its own story," the notes read of Giambattista Valli's typically dreamlike and romantic SS21 couture collection.
For the new season, the designer aimed to invite "a moment of introspection", while celebrating the most extravagant of fashion with his trademark tulle, bold colour palette, excessive volume and delicate embroidery.
Scroll down to see some highlights of the collection, which is just the kind of escapism we all need right now.
Dior
Dior's spring/summer 2021 collection – which was presented via a beautiful fashion film directed by Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone – celebrated the fascinating universe of the divinatory arts of which Christian Dior was such a fan – and the symbolic magic and pluralistic beauty of the tarot cards, which are cherished by current creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri.
"The symbolism of the tarot inspires a collection rich in luscious fabrics and glittering embroideries, where sleek monochrome tailoring meets dream-inducing evening wear in precious hues," the house said of the collection.
All highlights of the designs were captured within a truly beautiful film.
Iris van Herpen
Iris van Herpen
Iris van Herpen was inspired by the natural world for her spring/summer 2021 couture collection, while embracing the technical world to create it.
The Dutch designer's starting point for SS21 came from Entangled Life, a book about how fungi sustains life on earth. The silhouettes and intricate embellishments found throughout the designs that came down the catwalk were inspired by these shapes and patterns seen in mushrooms, specifically mycelium, which is the vegetative part of a fungus consisting of a mass of branching.
Meanwhile, much of the fabric was created using upcycled marine debris through a collaboration with Parley for the Oceans – and the one-of-a-kind designs were cut using 3D printing.
Schiaparelli
"In this, my third collection for Schiaparelli, I wanted to challenge the idea of what couture is, and should be, by making clothes that respect the tradition of not only this maison, but the artistry behind it, while at the same time exploding the cliches associated with the genre," creative director Daniel Roseberry explained in the presentation notes of the collection. He added that he hopes to challenge the idea that couture has to be all about "delicate embroidery, fragile as lace; skirts made from yards of silk; dresses as inoffensively pretty as something from a fairy tale — a vision unchanged from couture’s pinnacle in the 1950s".
Instead, the designer aims to "celebrate the joy of peacocking, the joy of showing off" through clothes which "make you aware of the fact of your body, that make you think about how you move through the world".
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