The 5 best moments of Paris Fashion Week

If there is one thing fashion weeks are teaching us these days, it is that we should not underestimate the power of menswear. Nor reduce it to tailoring, shirts, shoes and formal clichés. Paris Fashion Week was no exception: silhouettes of all sizes - although perfectly sculpted bodies abounded, there was no shortage of designers who gave voice to decidedly more natural forms such as those of the models brought out by Louis Gabriel Nouchi or Marine Serre - acrobatics bordering on the sexy and a mixture of aesthetics, imagery and subcultures ranging from Dior's soft boys to the Parisian zazous imagined by Dries Van Noten to the gothic Egypt proposed by Rick Owens.

We have selected the 5 most significant moments for this Paris Fashion Week that has just come to an end.

The tribute to Virgil Abloh

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Un post condiviso da Louis Vuitton (@louisvuitton)

While waiting for the new creative director, Louis Vuitton's SS23 collection was designed by a team of designers selected by Virgil Abloh himself. A group that was able to embrace and reinterpret Abloh's visions, paying him a tribute that smacks of nostalgia and the inevitable need to see a new guide at the helm. A guide who will have to leave an imprint and a method that can stand up to Virgil's boundless imagination. It all took shape in the stunning setting of the Louvre's Cour Carrée, where rapper Kendrick Lamar performed a live ode to the former creative director of Louis Vuitton.

Issey Miyake stunts

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Un post condiviso da HOMME PLISSÉ ISSEY MIYAKE (@hommeplisse_isseymiyake)

Impalpable, yet so substantial that it could lend support to the house's iconic motif: pleating. Amidst a comings and goings of monochromatic looks, the models became one with the dancers within an iron and steel structure of pillars and arches marked by the sun. A staging of contrasts that took the form of a human chain that ended in a rush that, for a moment, seemed to defy the laws of gravity.

Ludovic de Saint Sernin from Rick Owens

Amid fireballs animating the fountain at the Palais de Tokyo, Rick Owens translated one of his personal experiences - a trip to Egypt - into a universal reflection on the meaning of catastrophes. Hence the use of Dyneema, a fiber Owens told Vogue is «apparently one of the most durable in the world. I find it reassuring». And even forays into color palettes outside the usual black: yellow, fuchsia and purple exploded throughout the show. The casting was also extremely homogeneous in its proposal, so much so that it included French designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin. Are there perhaps grounds for a collaboration?

Cara Delevigne at AMI Paris

this is so funny to me pic.twitter.com/c2t2YcOOOs

— nada | jonathan bailey era (@jonnybaeley) June 23, 2022

She had taken a break from fashion shows the British actress and supermodel to return to the limelight during this Paris Fashion Week. She walked the runway at AMI's SS23 show, titled Cœur Sacré, outside the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Montmartre. It was an ode to Parisian glamour that featured super models such as Carla Bruni, Naomi Campbell and Farida Khelfa. There was even Carine Roitfield among the guests, as if to underscore the back to the 90s effect.

Thom Browne's show

How far can one go with menswear uniforms? More than you might imagine looking at the SS23 collection designed by Thom Browne: skimpy clothes - underwear, even in the jockstrap variant, became one of the focal points of the collection - inspired by the couture ideology of the 1940s and 1950s that, rather than shocking a cisgender clientele, played irreverently on the idea of clothing. A performance that deviated from the pre-established, choosing to focus on something fashion often forgets, fun. Not in this case, as the models joked and laughed along with the audience.