PARIS: The first-ever online Paris fashion week kicks off from Monday (today) as runway shows are thrown into a crisis by the coronavirus.
Paris haute couture and men’s fashion weeks have been rolled into one, with labels making movies to showcase their clothes instead of staging sometimes extravagant shows.
Gucci’s flamboyant creator Alessandro Michele slashed his shows from five to two a year while Saint Laurent is pulling out of Paris women’s fashion week later this year.
Its designer Anthony Vaccarello wants to set his own rhythm, a hitherto taboo idea which has become a rallying cry for many other creators.
Fellow Belgian Dries Van Noten the revered ‘King of Prints’ is also heading up one of two broad-based coalitions calling for root-and-branch reform to simplify the industry and make it more environmentally and socially sustainable.
Dior has called in the heavy artillery for its haute couture show, which is likely to be Monday’s highlight.
The Italian director Matteo Garrone, who took the glamour out of gangster life in Gomorrah and Dogman, may not seem the obvious candidate to make a film about dreamy handmade dresses that can take thousands of hours of painstaking work.
However, Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri the first woman to lead the iconic label said that these were not normal times. Fellow Italian Maurizio Galante has also taken a cinematic inspiration for his show earlier on Monday.
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