Paris Fashion Week Men's begins against turbulent backdrop

By

Dominique Muret

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Jan 14, 2020

The last leg of the menswear show marathon, after London, Florence and Milan, kicks off on Tuesday, January 13 in Paris. The French capital is something of a minefield, paralysed by a transport strike, which has been raging for over a month.

The situation for the Paris menswear week is further complicated by Gucci’s return to Milan, where it will close Milan Fashion Week Men's on Tuesday afternoon, cutting half a day off the Parisian program. The picture is completed by Paris’s constantly growing appeal, as the number of labels vying to show off-calendar is rising exponentially.

Against this turbulent backdrop, the Paris Fashion Week Men’s dedicated to the Fall/Winter 2020-21 collections, ending on Monday, January 19, will feature 53 catwalk shows, as opposed to 60 last season. In addition, there will be nearly 20 off-calendar shows, an unprecedented number. The busy program and the transport strike are a genuine headache for the French Haute Couture and Fashion Federation. To minimise travel difficulties, the organiser is doubling the number of shuttles to the various shows, some of them available from the city’s airports.
 
The fashion week's new edition will, of course, feature leading labels like Off-White and Vetements, as well as the major luxury houses: from Dior to Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Valentino, Balmain and Lanvin, with the exception of Celine, whose menswear line has dropped out of the calendar this season.

There will be two notable come-backs: Givenchy, which showed at Pitti Uomo last June, and Jacquemus, which opted to celebrate its 10th anniversary in the south of France. As it did in Provence last season, Jacquemus will present the men's and women's collections in a single show, taking its aficionados to the Parisian suburb of Nanterre, in the Défense district, on Saturday, January 18.
 

Botter among new names at Paris Fashion Week Men’s

This season, the Paris menswear calendar will include four new names: Rhude, Botter, Rochas Homme and Craig Green. Rhude will be the first to show, on January 14, right after Sankuanz. The label was founded in Los Angeles in 2018 by Californian designer, Rhuigi Villasenor; its style a blend of couture and streetwear. On Thursday, January 16, it will be the turn of Rochas to present its new menswear, styled for the last two seasons by Italian designer, Federico Curradi.

In the evening, the spotlight will shine on the designer duo, Rushemy Botter and Lisi Herrebrugh, also the creative directors of Nina Ricci, showing for the first time in Paris their label, Botter, winner at the Hyères Festival in 2018.
 
Rising star Craig Green, one of London’s most interesting emerging designers and is rewriting menswear codes season after season by blending workwear and futuristic shapes, is instead scheduled to show on the week's last day, Sunday, January 19.

Heralded among the Paris Fashion Week's new entries, Casablanca, the label by French-Moroccan designer Charaf Tajer, will show off-calendar on Friday, January 17. Among other off-calendar shows, those by Kidill, Louis Gabriel Nouchi, Natasha Zinko, Basscoutur, Amiri, Taakk, Tatras, Boramy Viguier (at the Tranoï show), Klaesi Holdener, Lazoschmidl, Gunther, Li Ning and Geoffrey B. Small.

Among the 13 labels, which are not featured on the catwalk calendar this season, some have also opted for this formula, staging their shows in parallel with the official programme. It will be the case especially for Heron Preston, for Rynshu, which will fête its 10th anniversary on Sunday January 19, and for Pigalle, the street-couture label by Stéphane Ashpool, which will also show on Sunday 19, unveiling its new collaboration with Nike.

Other names, like Japanese label Facetasm, U.S. label Sies Marjan by Dutch designer, Sander Lak, and Andrea Crews, have slotted into the presentation program, which is growing in size, and which the Fashion and Haute couture Federation is keen to further enhance.

Thom Browne, Kenzo to show during womenswear week

Among the withdrawals, Fumito Ganryu, CMMN SWDN and Japanese label, Christian Dada, which has closed down. Thom Browne will instead show its menswear together with womenswear next February. As will Kenzo, which is set to unveil the first men's and women’s collections by Felipe Oliveira Baptista during the Paris Fashion Week Women’s, while Jil Sander presented its collection at the Pitti Uomo show in Florence on January 8.

Finally, the French Couture Federation is launching a new initiative during the Paris Fashion Week Men’s, expanding its emerging designers showroom, the Designers Apartment. Instead of being staged twice a year during the Paris ready-to-wear week, the new showroom, rechristened Sphère – Paris Fashion Week showroom, will showcase some ten labels four times a year, during the men’s weeks too.
 
The first edition of Sphère will première from January 15 to 19 at the Palais de Tokyo venue, with nine labels: Blue Marble, Boyarovskaya, Egon Lab, Ester Manas, Gamut, Kits, Mansour Martin, Mossi and Simon Lextrait.

A second session will be held during the February and March collection presentations, and it will also include three international designers: Germanier, Kenneth Ize and Thebe Magugu, winner of the LVMH Prize 2019.