Leant against the corner of a dimly-lit dining room in mutton sleeves and a corseted-pant suit, Zendaya looks as though she is perhaps going to parse a crowd with a smoking revolver spinning around her fingers. Or break into a mediaeval drinking song with a group of buccaneering, but lovable, drunks. But such is the allure of Andreas Kronthaler’s work at Vivienne Westwood: producing clothing that feels rooted in historic dress and yet untethered from a particular era in time.
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As documented in an Instagram Reel by the actor’s “image architect” Law Roach, Zendaya was not making a tacit audition for some kind of period drama, of course, but posing at a high-ranking restaurant during the most recent edition of Paris Fashion Week. The actor approached the spring 2024 shows as an opportunity to reconnect with the fashion establishment, which, given the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, also meant getting glammed up in lots of covetable clothes.
As a global ambassador for the house, Zendaya spent most of the week in Louis Vuitton: a custom, zip-through dress designed by Nicolas Ghesquière and his 2015 gladiator skirt-bandeau top set, and then a puff-sleeved blouse from a 2004 collection designed by Marc Jacobs. But she also wore a polka-dot Balmain dress taken from Olivier Rousteing’s SS24 collection. It tracks, then, that she might have wanted to dial it down a notch (aka wear a jumper) when arriving back in London with Tom Holland.