At Paris Fashion Week, Real Life and Liberation

Real life remains the topic du moment in fashion land, which is little surprise, given the facts of our current existence are wilder than any fiction. The bizarre Paris Fashion Week which closed on Tuesday was further proof of life piercing the fashion bubble.

This was evident in shows that featured streets as backdrops or metropolitan sounds as soundtracks, such as Paco Rabanne’s quixotic foray into an experimental everyday wardrobe; in videos filmed on the avenues, such as Balenciaga’s “the sidewalk is your catwalk” Paris-after-dark pre-collection extravaganza; and in the rise of inclusive casting (see Gauchere, where this element worked particularly well, highlighting the adaptive simplicity of the tailoring).

But there is another reason, too, which is rather personal yet fundamental. Seen remotely from my base in Italy on the first available device at the time of airing for each collection — phone, tablet, computer — Paris Fashion Week merged suddenly with my own daily life, mixing with its minutiae and making for a very different experience to a normal season. Read more click here