🔗 Share this article

Coinciding with Taylor Swift, Sarah Burton stepped into her Showgirl phase. For her second outing as the creative director of Givenchy, Burton heightened the intensity with collars dripping rhinestones along the décolletage, opulent peach-toned feather accents, a compact and striking evening dress in lipstick red leather, and supermodel Naomi Campbell in a formal tuxedo coat left open over a scant lace-trimmed bra.

A New Identity

Burton has been at Givenchy under a year, but the longtime associate of Alexander McQueen has quickly defined a unique persona for the brand and for herself. The Givenchy fashion house, the legendary domain of Audrey Hepburn and the little black dress, has a flawless lineage of elegance that stretches from Paris to Hollywood, but it is a smaller player as a business. Previous designers at the house had mostly leaned into urban fashion and practical metallic details, but Burton is reintroducing the sophistication.

"The goal was to create something seductive and intimate and to expose flesh," Burton noted following the presentation. "When we want to empower women, we often adopt male-inspired styles, but I wanted to explore feminine sensibility, and dressing and undressing."

Concealed appeal was also present, too, in a formal shirt in smooth white leather. "Every woman is different," Burton commented. "At times when selecting models, a model puts on an outfit and I can just tell that she is uncomfortable in high heels. Therefore, I adjust the outfit."

Reclaiming the Red Carpet

Givenchy is reaffirming its position in red carpet dressing. Burton has dressed actor Timothée Chalamet in a pale yellow formal suit at the Academy Awards, and Kaia Gerber in a retro-inspired ballet dress of black lace at the cinematic event in Venice.

Schiaparelli’s Surreal Resurgence

The fashion house Schiaparelli, the avant-garde design house, has been making a comeback under the US-born creative director Daniel Roseberry. Next year, the Victoria and Albert Museum will host the first major British Schiaparelli exhibition, examining the work of designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the house she founded.

"Acquiring Schiaparelli is not about buying, you collect pieces from Schiaparelli," Roseberry declared post-presentation.

Women who wear Schiaparelli don’t need an exhibition to tell them that these garments are artistic. Art-adjacency is good for the bottom line – apparel is priced like fine art, with blazers beginning around £5,000. And income, as well as reputation, is on the up. The setting for the event was the Pompidou Center in Paris, an additional signal of how deeply this fashion house is connected to the arts.

Returning to Historic Partnerships

Roseberry recalled one of the most renowned partnerships of Elsa with surrealist master Dalí, the 1938 “Tears” dress which will appear in the V&A display. "This was about revisiting the foundation of the house," he said.

The torn effects in the original were painted on, but for the modern iteration Roseberry cut into the crepe silk itself. In both, the shreds are hauntingly reminiscent of stripped tissue.

Eerie Details and Playful Threat

There is an edge of menace at the Schiaparelli brand – The founder called her mannequins, with their defined shoulders and tailored waists, as her miniature army – as well as a gleeful delight in a joke. Fingernail-inspired fasteners and gold noses dangling as earrings are the iconic symbolism of the brand. The highlight of this presentation: faux fur made from paintbrushes.

Surrealism pops up all over current fashion. Broken-egg footwear – treading carefully, understand? – were extremely popular at the fashion house Loewe. Surrealist distorted timepieces have walked the catwalk at the Moschino label. But Schiaparelli dominates this domain, and Roseberry commands it.

"Garments from Schiaparelli possess a heightened theatricality which sucks the air out of the room," he stated. A red gown was adorned with a triangular piece of skin-colored netting that rested around the area underwear would typically be, in a startling illusion of nudity. The balance between practicality and drama is integral to the presentation.

US Talents Take on Paris

A merry-go-round of designer debuts has welcomed two NYC stars to Paris. The duo Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have moved on from the Proenza Schouler brand they created in 2002 to helm Loewe, the Spanish leather house that evolved into a $1.5bn (£1.1bn) alpha name under the tenure of Jonathan Anderson before his transition to Dior.

The US designers appeared thrilled to be in Paris. Bold colors inspired by Ellsworth Kelly brought a cheerful pop art vibe to the cultured artistic knowledge for which Loewe is currently known. Bright yellow loafers swayed their tassels like the hem of Josephine Baker; a crimson peplum blazer had the bold reflective shapes of a tomato sauce container. And a cocktail dress masquerading as a fresh-from-the-bath towel, soft like a clean towel, captured the sweet spot where smart creation blends with sartorial amusement.