It’s only been six months since Paula Canovas del Vas picked up and moved to Paris, but her bright little atelier in the 19th is packed to the rafters with neatly labeled boxes brimming with colorful scraps. A pocket door does double duty as a backdrop for photo shoots. Just days before this presentation, the racks were packed with colorful looks pieced together primarily from deadstock sourced here and there. The designer’s signature shoes—with upturned, twin-peak toes—were lined up in a row on the cutting table.
Paris is a gift for young creatives, and Canovas del Vas decided to produce a collection that was “like wrapping yourself as a present,” Christo style. Upstairs at the Instituto Cervantes, a dusty blue taffeta dress that tied in back was paired with jeans sourced from deadstock and stitched inside out. “She’s taunting me,” whispered guest Betty Bitschlap, the Danish drag queen, of that look. “I want it all.”
Models dressed in red bodysuits wandered among sculptures by Justine Ponthieux with art direction by Angelique Pilière, unwrapping and donning looks like a sweater vest in earthy ombré knit with a striped trim and patterned inserts or jackets cut in trompe l’oeil—part bomber, part basque. Canovas del Vas referenced her love of Paris in painterly heart shapes—for example, as a print on a jersey dress. Bloomers had a whiff of flamenco. The designer said that she and her studio make a point of wearing pieces all over town and notably while cycling, just to be sure they hold up. “It’s a long process of studying volume and thinking about what feels comfortable,” she said. Her ideas are gaining traction: The K-pop girl band NewJeans has already come calling, and the designer is headed to China in a few weeks. It will be interesting to see where that leads.
