The Biggest News of the Fall 2016 Season
The Fall 2016 ready-to-wear season might go down as fashion’s most confused to date. With the designer rumor mill operating on high speed, the issue of consumer-facing shows buzzing in everyone’s minds, and an array of trends, there was no single message or idea for showgoers to cling to. What stood out at the shows from New York to Paris were designers who stuck to their guns, sending out fashion they believed in, not fashion to please. Those shows, you’ll find in our best collections list. But for the news that was gossiped about in the front row, look no further than our roundup of the seven talking points of the season, below.
Photo: Alessandro Garofalo / Indigital.tv1/7The Two Sides of Saint Laurent
The season began and ended with Saint Laurent. The house kicked things off on February 10 in Los Angeles with a men’s and women’s ready-to-wear show that drew heavily on Monsieur Saint Laurent’s ’70s heritage, and showed its heavily ’80s-inspired couture collection in Paris toward the end of Paris Fashion Week. In between the two shows, each illustrating a different element of Hedi Slimane’s prowess as a creative director, the rumor mill kicked into high gear with speculation that the Los Angeles show or its Parisian counterpart would be his last as creative director. Still no word on that, but we can report that both presentations were among Slimane’s best.
Photo: Alessandro Garofalo / Indigital.tv2/7Diversity, and the Lack of It
Inclusion was the message at a core group of shows from New York to Paris. Trans actress Hari Nef was a front row fixture in Manhattan; H&M put plus-size models on the runway in Paris; Balmain celebrated all ethnicities, Undercover, all ages; and voluptuous supermodels returned to the catwalks of Marc Jacobs, Versace, Givenchy, and Miu Miu. Still, some well-known and celebrated brands didn’t get the message.
Photo: Alessandro Garofalo / Indigital.tv3/7Where Are the Creative Directors?
Fashion fans spent the Fall season at the edge of their seats trying to keep up with rumors of designer comings and goings. Gossip aside, there are were still two gaping vacancies in Paris at Dior and Lanvin when the shows ended. In the hours since, Lanvin has announced Bouchra Jarrar as its new artistic director for womenswear—still nothing from Dior, which vowed to take its time finding an ideal replacement for Raf Simons.
Photo: Yannis Vlamos / Indigital.tv4/7The Life of Kanye
No one does spectacle like Kanye West. His Yeezy Season 3 unveiling and The Life of Pablo listening party at Madison Square Garden put 18,000 derrieres in the stadium’s seats and kept them there for nearly two hours while West and co. spoke, danced, and proclaimed their creative intentions on the world’s stage. The presentation was notable not only for its grandeur, but also for West’s uncompromising efforts to become a real part of—not just a celebrity addition to—the New York calendar. He collaborated with Balmain on outfits for his family, seated Demna Gvasalia in the stands, booked Naomi Campbell, and ended the whole shebang with the statement that he aims to become the creative director of Hermès. Sounds crazy? Perhaps, but if his Twitter feed is to be believed, West’s meeting this week with the Hermès team went swimmingly.
Photo: Alessandro Garofalo / Indigital.tv5/7With a Little Help From My Friends
Rather than point to their muses in the front row, designers have taken to dressing them up and sending them out with the rest of their models on the runway. In New York, Lady Gaga stomped along with Marc Jacobs’s platform-clad girls, while Milan saw photographer Petra Collins join the ranks at Gucci. Marques ‘ Almeida used its assistants and friends as models in London, and Paris really took the street-cast concept to the max, with Vetements, Balenciaga, Koché, and Jacquemus all using friends of the brands—artists and musicians among them—in their shows.