Parisian menswear indulges in crafts and entertainment, Rosalía included

Turning fashion into viral content is the dream of every luxury brand.

The Louis Vuitton men's collection show for next fall, presented last Thursday in Paris, has patented a new way to achieve it.

For a quarter of an hour, the models that paraded through a stage created by Michel and Olivier Gondry inspired by a teenage bedroom - and in which it was not difficult to see a tribute to Virgil Abloh, creative director of the brand until his sudden death in 2021 — they did it around a presence capable of taming any stage.

Rosalía, chosen as the musical curator of the parade, recounted several songs by

and he even had time to get emotional with Camarón in a presentation whose limits exceed those of the traditional parade and which is committed to turning fashion into entertainment.

The result —of hypnotic precision, like everything the Catalan initials— was also the consecration of the obsessions that have marked this stage of Vuitton: extreme craftsmanship —with hand-painted and embroidered bags— and the collaborative spirit.

The designer Colm Dillane, founder of the firm Kidsuper, has coordinated the collection as a guest designer.

Several of the most suggestive garments, such as those based on an extremely intricate

of fabrics, colors and patterns, refer to his language.

In turn, Abloh's legacy is embodied in concepts such as community and culture, which defend that fashion, even that with prohibitive prices only accessible by a minority, has to speak of its time and look beyond its limits to attract new public.

Rosalía, at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris men's fashion week, on January 19, 2023. EMMANUEL DUNAND (AFP)

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Rosalía's performance at the Louis Vuitton parade, where she has been much more than a singer

In comparison, the rest of the shows adopted more conventional formats, which does not have to be a problem.

They demanded attention, for example, the Dior Men models that paraded twice: on the catwalk and on giant screens.

The collection signed by Kim Jones is more melancholic and brutalist than the previous ones, with a muted color palette that, however, underlines the preciousness of the materials.

The double parade of Dior Men in Paris, with one in person and the other on screens.GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT (AFP)

At Hermès, Véronique Nichanian mixes fabrics and fibers: braided leather, overlays of different kinds of knits, leather applications on tailoring pieces, and visible seams.

Her collections dialogue with each other season after season in a comforting continuity, but it escapes no one that she was one of the first firms to update tailoring through technology.

A model presents a knitted sweater at the Hermès show, on January 21 in Paris.Christophe Ena (AP)

The renewal of the formal goes through this hybrid formula.

On the one hand, there are more and more tailoring suits, jackets and coats on the catwalks.

On the other, the imprint of sportswear —technical fabrics, practical details, pockets, zippers and hoods— coexists with techniques and fabrics from the most luxurious women's fashion.

That same duality is present at Givenchy, where Matthew M. Williams proposes razor-sharp zip-up leather jackets and shorts that become winter-ready when paired with tall boots.

The jackets of the Givenchy show in Paris. EMMANUEL DUNAND (AFP)

Looking at the ground is a common exercise in women's fashion shows, where footwear has always enjoyed special relevance, but also in men's collections, especially since the appearance of sports shoes as an object of desire.

The round-toed shoes and ankle boots designed by Jonathan Anderson for Loewe speak of a certain aesthetic calm that, as usual in the Northern Irishman, excludes boredom.

Anderson, who on this occasion has been inspired by classical painting —and that of the artist Julian Nguyen— to choose his materials (parchment shirts, leather garments and even a copper jacket), has presented a suggestive collection, with few chromatic stridencies and various coups: enormous bell-shaped puffer coats,

angel wing harnesses and suede garments brushed to give it a vintage texture.

"Men's fashion is a challenge, and a platform to address other issues," the designer commented after the show, where there was no shortage of a new variation of his Puzzle bag, this time in the shape of a large leather tote with geometric cuts.

A moment of the Dries Van Noten show in Paris. Michel Euler (AP)

Paris fashion week is tied to the veterans of the avant-garde.

The Belgian Dries Van Noten is inspired by electronic music without renouncing the proverbial delicacy of his fabrics —silk, embossed knit, velvet— and his prints, on this occasion from botanical engravings.

Issey Miyake's Homme Plissé show was a tribute to the choreographic fluidity and sophistication of the brand's founder, who passed away last summer.

Yohji Yamamoto, the patriarch of deconstruction, cultivates his own classicism: layering, muted and close to each other tones and a fluid silhouette, between monastic and sporty.

Darkness and overlapping tones at Yohji Yamamoto's presentation at Paris fashion week in January 2023.GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT (AFP)

In turn, Rick Owens, with his passion for the color black, gothic textures, skin (also fish), seventies references and cuts that reveal the body, demonstrates why more and more young designers cite him as a reference .

One of those confessed fans is Ludovic de Saint Sernin, who, while waiting to present his first collection as artistic director of Ann Demeulemeester —he will do so in March, at the Paris women's fashion week— once again starred in a mixed show rooted in in his fascination with the fashion of the early 2000s: transparencies, relaxed knitwear and reissues of hits such as leather pants with corsetry details.

The gothic universe of Rick Owens, on the catwalk of the men's fashion week in Paris. GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT (AFP)

De Saint Sernin became fond of fashion through the television programs and magazines of his childhood.

For Emily Bode, the founder of the Bode firm, the germ was laid by family memories and the wardrobes of her mother's generation and his grandmother's.

That is why he turned the stage of the Théâtre du Chatelet into a recreation of a garden where classic garments with handmade allusions to American folklore paraded.

It was not the only reinterpretation of tailoring from the roots: Bianca Saunders alluded to his Jamaican origins, and Wales Bonner did the same with the icons of black culture of the mid-20th century.

Marine Serre, who closed the day on Saturday, claimed the saving power of clothing among large cages of used clothing that allude to the ecological catastrophe and the responsibility of the textile industry.

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