The Best Five Things about Paris Men Fashion Week FW15

"In Paris everybody wants to be an actor, nobody is content to be a spectator."

Jean Cocteau wrote this many years ago, and we agree. Unfortunately, when we talk about fashion shows we have to surrender to our role as public.

Now we tell you our favorite collections. 

#1 Maison Margiela

Strobe lighting and Primal Scream's music draw the outlines of a collection that pays homage to the '70s, to rock and glamor of that era.

No total look, but a heterogeneous mix of pieces: lurex sweaters and tailored pants, oversize vest and floral skinny. Maison Margiela  wear a sophisticated dandy who loves glitter, leather and straight out of Boogie Nights.

" Disconnected, disorderly, inspired. Democratic." So the Belgian brand describes its Parisian proposal and tackles this season of transition, John Galliano for top secret reasons is not the designer.

#2 Commes des Garcons

Layers of meaning dress Rei Kawakubo's ritual: death, life, loss. The multicolored graphics overlap with dark pinstripes, pure white broken withthe disturbing images of the South African photographer Roger Ballen (invisible in 2-D).

Kawakubo explores life and sexuality, male and female. Everything is theatrical, is a mysterious ritual that finds into the disturbing  music by Jocelyn Pook the perfect soundtrack.

Gosha Rubchinskiy brings on catwalk 90s Russia, the post-glasnost and reworks their codes and stereotypes, creating a collection of hybrid streetwear. Inside an old orthodox church thirteen models, chosen through a casting on the street, are ever-changing photography of the Russia-China old alliance. Wearing parkas, sweatshirts written in Cyrillic, sweatpants and socks out, they evoke 80s paninari, but also hooligans and members of Nazbol, Russian political party illegal created in the 90s.

#4 Raf Simons

Raf Simons reworks history and archives of Martin Margiela and Helmut Lang, always his heroes, to create a collection that speaks about the history of fashion, but also about teens and 70s.

The designer lives through cuts and fabrics the typical rite of passage during which the Belgian older university students get those of the first year to do some assignments, and must wear a lab coat, then filled with messages written during the ritual.

Simons realizes its own version of those garments, decorating them with a sophisticated artwork, with references to the work of Joseph Beuys, and mixes them with other proposals that alternate precise tailoring with unfinished details.Each collection is a new journey in the history of fashion, but also in its future.

#5 Dries Van Noten

Each show of the historic brand of Antwerp is a painting, a small picture framed with rich fabrics. For autumn-winter 2015-16Dries Van Noten  takes us on a romantic journey through the East Asia, through China and Japan. Show all its tailoring skills and the sublime ability to create unique patterns, making us discover the Miao people, known for its beautiful and detailed embroidery of their clothes.

Their traditional motifs become tinsel for the coas, Chinese uniforms the base for jackets and shirts, while the samurai influences result in overlaps of tunics and trousers.  When the extravagance becomes refined elegance.

photo credit: Dazed