Haute Couture Fashion Week 2024
Haute Couture Fashion Week, which took place in Paris (January 22-25), previewed spring and summer 2024 collections. Only a few houses are granted access to showcase collections at Couture Week that represent craftsmanship and luxury fashion. This season featured exciting collections from Jean Paul Gaultier with Simone Rocha as a guest designer to Maison Margiela’s theatrical show. PhotoBook highlights some of the top shows of the season.
Simone Rocha incorporates her own aesthetic of girlishness to Jean Paul Gaultier as a guest couturier that still references the house’s codes of sailor motifs, corsets, and cone bras. Rocha accentuates the female form, similarly to Gaultier, with hoop skirts, soft ribbon corsets, and horned bras. Standout looks include Rocha’s take on the classic marinière top with silk ribbons and bows acting as stripes and the final bridal look crafted from lace and tulle. Rocha’s collection is provocative with her silhouettes and barely-there fabrics, that is still youthful and feminine.
Giambattista Valli paints a picture of elegant couture that emphasizes themes of romanticism, grace, and spring. The show opens with a black bodysuit, adorned with oversized white roses along the shoulders and neckline that sets the tone for the rest of the collection. Valli references Victorian silhouettes with crinoline structured gowns, bustle skirts, and leg of mutton sleeves. This is juxtaposed with looks revealing bare shoulders and short hemlines. Cascades of flowers, layers of tulle, and embroidered crystals bring an element of over-the-top that the recent trend of quiet luxury has been missing.
Viktor & Rolf’s “Scissorhands” couture collection takes a literal approach to the theme with tattered hems, ripped silhouettes, and haphazard holes that brings a shock factor which creative directors, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, are not strangers to. For the show, the theme of deconstruction and orchestrated chaos is accompanied by the sound of scissors snipping and cutting. All-black, simple silhouettes fill the blank canvas runway with their tattered and ripped counterparts that expose nude underdressing and skin. Each tear is purposeful that displays exceptional craftsmanship and bold design.
Daniel Roseberry seamlessly blends technology and luxury fashion for Schiaparelli’s couture show that honors the house’s signature for old-world design and new-world techniques. Schiaparelli features sculpted dresses in avant garde shapes, large, padded shoulders, and jewel-encrusted fabrics. Standout looks include a robot mini dress covered entirely in Swarovski crystals and electronic chips, and a head-to-toe sequin dress with a key-shaped frontal cutout. Not only does Roseberry pay tribute to the brand’s codes, but the creative director also alludes to his home state of Texas with western details such as large belt buckles, fringe trimmed sleeves and hems, and cowboy boots. Schiaparelli adds a new meaning to luxury fashion with futuristic opulence.
Maison Margiela closed Paris Couture Week with an evening full of fantasy and world-building that only John Galliano could deliver. Opening the show with a live musical performance followed by a noir crime film, sets the tone for an evening of theatrics, supplemented by porcelain doll-like models that break the fourth wall and bring Galliano’s collection to life. Gilded Age fashion with extreme corsets transitions into naked illusion dresses and odd-proportionate suiting. The details of the show include broken umbrellas, blackened eye masks, reinvented newsboy caps, and dramatic gestures from the models, delivering an emotional performance.
As Haute Couture Fashion Week 2024 concluded, it pushed boundaries of the future of fashion with new materials, silhouettes, and techniques. This season celebrated the artistry of couture and solidified that luxury fashion is here to stay.
Article by Makenna Tourville, Contributor, PhotoBook Magazine
Tearsheets by Chenglin Qu, Graphic Design Intern, PhotoBook Magazine
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