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The Spring/Summer 2024 menswear edition of Paris Fashion Week started with a bang. The unprecedented scale and buzz of Pharrell Williams’s three-hour debut show for Louis Vuitton on day one set a high bar — but there were plenty of other highlights throughout the week, which ran from 20-25 June.
Loewe was a standout for many buyers and editors; several others enjoyed Dior’s “immersive” experience. “Paris Fashion Week [Men’s] felt the most buzzing it has been in the last years. It has been great to see the streets being full of people from the fashion industry," says Harrods menswear buying manager Marc Schmitt. The energy in Paris this season is a reflection of the strength of the menswear market, he adds. “Menswear has seen very consistent growth over the last [few] years. We have seen a big demand in eventwear and men wanting to dress up for any occasion.”
This season saw streetwear becoming more refined and tailoring more playful. “It feels like a great extension of AW23’s quiet luxury, which could have been too much of the same for a second season,” says Ida Petersson, buying director at Browns. “You need an element of surprise, otherwise, all of the garments blend into each other on a shop floor.” Dior, for example, mixed a summer beige suit with a neon green polo shirt.
The SS24 edition comprised 42 shows (up from 39 last year) and 38 presentations. “There is a great diversity when it comes to the expressions of creation and scenography, with large-scale shows and others more restrained. There’s not one single model,” says Pascal Morand, executive president of Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode.
Dior Men’s artistic director Kim Jones caught attention by sending models rising up and down from the floor. “The ambience of the show with the elevators and synchronised walking was a great immersive experiment,” says Petersson. On the collection, she adds: “I loved Kim’s take on summer suiting; it felt very fresh. We’ve seen tweed on the best-selling list for womenswear for some time, and I think — much like he did with pearls for men a few years back — this will become a key fabric for SS24 onwards in the men’s world. I especially loved how he worked it top-to-toe with the acid yellow highlights on accessories.”
At Loewe, Jonathan Anderson stretched out proportions. Backstage, he described the idea of “a fish-eye lens looking up at someone so the torso becomes smaller and the legs become longer”, Anderson said after the show.
Actor Brian Cox, who played Logan Roy in hit HBO show Succession, was in attendance. About his first fashion show, he said: “It was just excellent, the imagination, the boldness.” Buyers were equally enthusiastic. “I feel Jonathan at Loewe (and at his own label) is emerging as one of the strongest voices on the men’s schedule,” says Petersson, pointing to the tailored elongated pants paired with suit jackets and the utilitarian tailoring in khaki green.
The Dries Van Noten show was another highlight. Kim Johnson, chief merchandising officer at Feature, a multi-brand retailer with locations in Las Vegas, Scottsdale and Calabasas, praised “[Van Noten’s] direction from season to season; staying true to who he is while staying fresh.”
At Hermès, artistic director Véronique Nichanian referenced high summer and made short shorts for men. “Boys have beautiful legs, too, it’s time to see them,” she said after the show. “I don’t make skirts yet, but I like short shorts. When we speak about gender fluidity today, it’s mostly men dipping into women’s wardrobes. I m delighted by this opening up to a world that s a little more feminine. Plus, today is gay pride. It broadens the scope of men s clothing.”
A flurry of big-name designers, including Rick Owens, Olivier Rousteing, Daniel Roseberry and Coperni’s Arnaud Vaillant, turned out for Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s show on Sunday night. It was a show of support for de Saint Sernin, who recently exited Ann Demeulemeester after just one season as creative director.
The collection featured short skirts, lace-up briefs in lambskin, open shirts and jewellery made in collaboration with New York brand Vagujhelyi, including cuffs and chokers. “It’s a reset of the brand. I debuted [on] exactly this day six years ago during fashion week, off-calendar,” said de Saint Sernin backstage, pointing to the run of show. “It represents so many ideas of beauty, sensuality, love, freedom and to dare to be yourself.” Asked why there’s a lot of skin, he replied: “It’s kind of my signature, isn’t it? This season, I wanted it to be a lot more researched in the cut; what you reveal and what you don’t reveal.”
The rise of the ‘alt-logo’
Vintage logos were prevalent this season. At Louis Vuitton, Williams brought back “Marque déposée L Vuitton”. At the Kenzo co-ed show, a new Kenzo Paris logo featuring the address of its head office — “18 rue Vivienne” — had a vintage look (Kenzo artistic director Nigo collaborated with Japanese graphic artist Verdy on the design).
“Multiplying marks and logos is a way to highlight the coolness of a house by using streetwear and bootleg culture codes,” says Michael Amzalag, one-half of the M/M design duo. “It’s tongue in cheek and appealing to the younger audience for which the ‘alt-logo’ is a mark of irony, played by Gucci, Balenciaga, and now almost every brand.”
LA coolness in Paris
Californian brands had a strong presence in Paris this menswear season. Rhuigi Villaseñor’s latest collection for his own brand Rhude, titled “A dream within a dream”, nodded to the American dream and “to the aspirations he has had since his childhood”, writes Vogue Runway’s José Criales-Unzueta.
Schmitt of Harrods describes the Amiri collection, shown at the Jardin des Plantes, as “connected to the sunshine of [the brand’s] LA base with a ’70s flavour”, noting the “refined” colour palette of faded blues and greens against rich and varied tones of terracotta. “The Amiri man has grown up and developed each season, and today he was more elevated and elegant than ever,” adds Schmitt.
In a showroom near the Parc Monceau, Doni Nahmias presented an SS24 collection that “showed a true continuation of his surf side luxe collection that stayed true to his Californian roots”, says Riccardo Dallai, the owner of Riccardi, a boutique in Boston. “We had ‘Miracle’ written on a hat [and] Justin Bieber did a carpool karaoke with James Corden wearing it. It sold out. It helped a lot to fund the brand,” Nahmias told Vogue Business at the showroom.
Louis Vuitton steals the show
Numbers-wise, Louis Vuitton won the week. The show garnered more than 500 million views across platforms, according to social media listening agency Lefty. It surged to $45 million in earned media value — up 498 per cent compared with SS23, Lefty’s preliminary data shows. Williams was everywhere this season: at his Joopiter auction, an event for his skincare brand Humanrace at La Samaritaine, and as a guest at the Kenzo and Loewe shows.
“I imagine a lot of people left the Louis Vuitton show wondering: how could anyone top that?” says Venya Brykalin, editor-in-chief of Vogue Ukraine. “There has been a lot of conversation about it during the week, and it is an important conversation to have: not just on the entertainment or sociocultural level, but also on how we define a creative director job.”
Brykalin sees the show as “a tipping point”. “I don’t know if this show puts added pressure on other designers, but my bet is it will affect how big brands will be building storytelling around their shows in the next seasons.”
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