Paris Fashion Week 2024: Recession Fashion in full swing | McQueen fails to impress, the Chloé woman is back!
Recession Fashion is in full swing. We're in Paris but some of the fabrics & materials look cheaper than ever. McQueen last night disappointed, Chloé was a highlight. This is our FRM review of PFW24.
I think a good place to start at when deciphering why Paris Fashion Week 2024 looked like *that* is to understand what the definition of an “economic recession” is–which is what we are in currently by the way.
So an economic recession is technically defined as a “significant decline in economic activity that lasts for months or even years. When a nation’s economy experiences negative gross domestic product (GDP), rising levels of unemployment, falling retail sales, and contracting measures of income and manufacturing for an extended period of time.”
Now with that being said, I feel the fashion industry is primarily suffering from this financial phenomena, and the excessive fashion shows showcasing repetitive silhouettes & unoriginal ideas, gross neglect of ethics, mistreatment of staff and labour etc (which we hear about on social media daily) are merely symptoms of an already existing disease within the industry. Luxury fashion has lost its passion for craft. More so, I would say that Luxury fashion has sold its passion for craft–a literal straight trade of Creativity for Commerce.
The only remaining pure fashion luxury brand in my eyes which has maintained its stance of craft over everything is Prada; sometimes I even consider Prada to be the only remaining luxury fashion brand in the world. But Prada are Milan-based; they showcase in MFW and not Paris, Gucci & Bottega Veneta too, which further begs the question: what remains in Paris for us to actually see? Lol I’ll try and answer that using the helps of my extensive tweets on the topic over the last few weeks.
Firstly, McQueen kinda sucked. Let’s be honest. I’m a bit disappointed because I actually had faith and remained impartial in my judgement beforehand… Even after Seán McGirr (Alexander McQueen’s new creative director) released that elementary (at best) campaign a few weeks back incorporating the iconic McQueen skull motif as some form of… inspiration? The show lacked inspiration; from the music to the models and more. I liked the venue; quintessential McQueen but honestly the clothes presented gave you a contradictory feeling compared to their Art direction. Personally I felt like some of the looks were giving cheap; Loewe knock-offs, straight ready-to-wear, a bit lazy and predictable which is soo unlike McQueen. Oww, I loved some of the coats though! But overall, I just didn’t not recognise who the customer is…
Believe it or not, there are also some shows I really liked. Mostly from the lesser-known independent brands on schedule. So Vaquera was a burst of fresh air, Rick Owens continued to prove why he’s considered a legend within the field, Givenchy seems be recovering pretty well post-Matthew Williams, and your more tenured luxury brands like Vivienne Westwood & Ann Demeulemeester also showcased stellar collections. The ‘Anti-Fashion crew’, Comme des Garçons, Yohj Yamamoto, Junya Watanabe also presented nuanced-yet-brand aware collections. But Chloé was honestly my stand out. Considering the exit of iconic and well-respected Gabriela Hearst from the brand and just where their brand position had slightly fell off to, I give full props to the incoming Chemena Kamali who presented one of the best Chloé collections I’ve seen in a while.
But Paris isn’t done yet! So we’ve still got our homegrown Maxhosa Africa showcasing for the first time, seasoned favourites Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton, and more personal favourites like Kiko Kostadinov and Miu Miu.
