Paris Fashion Week: Pastel and shoulders at Chanel, petticoats for Dior, and Germanier’s colorful beads
PARIS — Chanel assembled a sprawling runway set in the form of its trademark interlocking C logo for its spring summer 2025 catwalk show, held last Tuesday at the Grand Palais in central Paris.
Models paraded a pastel-colored lineup of glittering dresses and tailored jackets along the white carpet of the sloping set, many emphasizing the shoulders, which were bulked up. (Watch the show here: https://www.chanel.com/us/haute-couture/spring-summer-2025/ )
There were trim jackets with round, broadened shoulders, sheer dresses with piles of feathers, loosened sleeves and flouncy skirts.
At the end of the show, the clapping audience hesitated a moment, seeming to mark the customary pause reserved for a designer’s bow, before standing up and heading out into the blustery weather.
Chanel has been without a creative director since the abrupt departure of Virginie Viard halfway through last year, with her task left to in-house design teams. The privately owned fashion house said in December Matthieu Blazy would succeed her in the role.
The choice of Mr. Blazy, who joins from Kering-owned Bottega Veneta later this year and is credited with helping boost that label’s recent success, signals a new approach for Chanel, famous for tweed jackets and No. 5 perfume.
The haute couture fashion shows in Paris ran through Jan. 30 and featured some of the industry’s best-known labels
DIOR
Dior creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri kicked off the Paris Haute Couture fashion shows on Monday last week with a lineup of hooped petticoats and corsets in sheer, airy fabrics. (Watch the show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfTathfqqvc)
Models marched down the runway in low heels parading ruffled and lacy looks, some with voluminous skirts, decorated with tufts of fabrics, sequins or ribbons that streamed behind.
Ms. Chiuri drew on the house’s original La Cigale silhouette from the early 1950s, known for a tightly cinched waist, as well as the looser Trapeze line from the late 1950s, throwing fitted jackets over short, puffy skirts and decorating tulle with embroidery.
Models wore their hair slicked back, in a mohawk-like style, with a row of feather-tipped spikes that added a punk flair to the look.
The LVMH-owned fashion house held the show in a temporary structure in the gardens of the Rodin Museum where the set was decorated by colorful artwork by Rithika Merchant. The artist’s fantastical creatures and tropical vegetation added to the otherworldly flavor of the catwalk presentation.
GERMANIER
Kevin Germanier showed a lineup of short, skin-hugging dresses in brightly colored beadwork for his namesake label’s catwalk outing on Thursday, closing the week of spring/summer 2025 haute couture shows in Paris. (See the show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8LwBFxXu5I)
Models marched down the concrete runway, tassels swinging and bead-covered boots clicking. One garment appeared to be decorated with colored felt pens that fanned out in all directions while piles of ruffles added volume to knit dresses.
Mr. Germanier said he used second-hand garments and leftovers from workshops in countries including Brazil and India.
“My client is not just a celebrity, it’s literally a woman who just loves fashion and she wants to go to have tea with her friends looking fabulous,” he said, backstage after the show.
The Swiss designer has dressed celebrities including Taylor Swift, and made costumes for performers at the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games last summer. — Reuters
