On the Esplanade Saint-Louis in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, a hundred journalists, clients and personalities from the fashion world merge among the monumental sculptures of the Loewe show’s set. They are the work of artist Lynda Benglis, a giant of postwar American sculpture. In her six decades of career she has redefined the artistic object through her relentless innovation in form and materials. Her pieces are viscerally exaggerated, reflecting light in radically different ways and magnifying themselves. A game of proportions with which Jonathan W. Anderson, one of the most influential creators in contemporary fashion narrative, has wanted to challenge and alter the reign of silent luxury. As? Using his best virtue: altering conventional forms to turn any garment into the new and most coveted object of everyone’s desire.
The Irish creative has proposed a practical but daring daytime wardrobe for the Spring-Summer 2024 season that puts all the focus on the strength of the details. A play on proportions that transforms into extremely high waists, long legs and a compact bust. Garments that hug the silhouette of the body, without squeezing it, to give you the opportunity to move and be yourself with absolute freedom. “I feel that we have embarked on a journey that has not been the product of an overnight decision. Sometimes you get it right and other times you get it wrong. But when there is suffering and there is pain, it is because there is something very authentic behind it,” Anderson said after the parade. Behind this 39-year-old young Irishman lies a true virtuoso, a defender of transversality in fashion and capable of transforming tradition into an exciting vision for the present.
For Anderson, textures play a fundamental role in the entire framework. The point comes to light in the form of short, thick sweaters or long capes that wrap around the body. Leather is structured into elegant coats, into bags that can be folded under the arm, and into T-shirts and pants with scratched hems. The theatricality so characteristic that defines the DNA of this new era of Loewe that captures new – and not so new – generations is in the oversized buttons that crown the coats, in large pins that function as a belt and in the accumulations of shiny brooches that, in the form of vegetation, slide down the models’ busts. All of these created by Lynda Benglis as sculptures and works of art to be displayed daily and that reflect the changing and volatile world around us. All under a palette of contrasts that ranges from camel brown, gray and black, to red, bougainvillea and tangerine. Anderson’s models dream high, but from the asphalt, with round-toed shoes, pointed mules, ergonomic shoes and with a college air. Buckles are reduced and exaggerated, as are bags, which take on different attitudes with mini and medium sizes.
Dior also made comfort reign with his particular ode to the flat shoe thanks to some braided ballerinas that extended to knee height simulating the footwear of a gladiator. Maria Grazia Chiuri presented in Paris an interpretation of the assertive and rebellious woman, who rejects clichés and reaffirms her independence and disagreement with patriarchy. Straight and angular sets, with a clear predominance of the black and white binomial, which paraded under a monumental decoration by the artist Elena Bellantoni. Messika was in charge of lighting up Paris Fashion Week with the high jewelry show in which she presented her Midnight Sun collection. A manifesto of creativity inspired by the extravagance and freedom of the great places of the seventies, such as Studio 54, which featured exceptional models such as Carla Bruni, official ambassador, and guests of the stature of the iconic Cher.
