Stop for a while and close your eyes. Close them as wide as possible and ask yourself: what does fashion mean to you? Reflect, think, imagine.
In one of Rick Owens’s latest interviews for the System Magazine from his Parisian Fall/Winter 2025 show, I heard that for him, fashion represents “communication.” He said, “I am reaching out into the community; I am engaging.”
The strong, emotional, and meaningful debut show of this season was the creative duo Matière Fécal by Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran. Rick and Michèle Lamy were there. The filmmaker Gaspar Noé (Love, Irréversible, Vortex) was spotted along with the renowned fashion journalists in the guest crowd waiting in front of Hotel le Marois before the show.
Photos by @glazamirz from @metieresfecalesparis debut show
As written in the show notes:
“This collection is about being fearless in your identity. It’s about walking into a room with your head held high, even if nobody wants you there. It’s about getting bullied every day but still finding the courage to wake up and do it all over again. It’s about being rejected by your family simply because of who you love and what you love. It’s about never being able to feel fully safe and comfortable walking down the street in public, no matter where you are. It’s about the pain and suffering of being the other within humanity.
It’s about letting your dreams and fantasies take over your mind in hopes of covering the deep sorrows of your reality.”
From the same notes, we learn that every look was sketched 10 months ago in one sitting by Steven in their Parisian 30m2 apartment in the 2ème arrondissement on top of a pizza shop. Giving a sense of realism to what many of us may experience to the point of being touched. The perfection of cutting, fabrics, and exceptional thoughtfulness of every look testify to the enormous volume of work and dedication that are standing behind them. Here the audience is a community, it’s an integral part of the happening, its oneness. They perfectly understand and align the concept of the show, they came prepared, with no occasional influencers here. In the latest interview with Imran Amed of Business Of Fashion Rick Owens was talking about alienation or, as Imran put it, an “Alien Nation”; Rick said that he gives an option for people who “don’t see themselves reflected completely in today’s contemporary cultural aesthetics standards, which can be very narrow”. “Rick has a tribe, there are people that follow him who may feel left out of other things or maybe don’t wanna be a part of other things”, pursued Diane Pernet in the same interview.
This vision appears to be very close to Matière Fécal’s approach to fashion as a ‘safe place’ for those who are different, the community misfitted by the society who at the end of the day are not so low-numbered.
When I spoke to some of the guests and models after the show, some of them expressed that it was the best one of this fashion week. And I am very inclined to agree with this.
However, a 15-minute walk from the venue of the Matière Fécal show in the epicentre of the Paris Fashion Week – Le Palais de Tokyo- completely different fashion is happening: usually highly anticipated by “high profile” guests Elie Saab show, the circus of human vanity. The audience is strikingly unlike the one depicted above. Modern princesses, dressed to kill, seduce, and show (off?). Here the luxury reigns, and the sense of elitism is palpable. The security checks are multiple: our photographer who happened to get a “runway access pass” was prevented from photographing the front row, and stopped by the PR assistant who firmly guided her to the spot among other photographers. No backstage access either.
Watching the Elie Saab collection (on the screen of my phone) I felt nostalgic as quite a few looks reminded me of the winter ones of my mother back in the 1990s in Moscow: fur coats and shapkas (fur hats), sexy suits, sheerness, snow white sets. Lots of black and burgundy which is apparently still trendy. Elie Saab fashion is more about belonging to world jet set individuals who, by principle, will not get together to protect their right to exist and create. Being in the or close to the top of the social pyramid they don’t see someone who is standing below. That’s fashion too. The kind of Members Club fashion.
Photos by @vera.parisphoto from Elie Saab FW25 show
At the show of Florentina Leitner, we were asked to pull out the invite with the number of your sitting place, a curious way to make all chances equal. I pulled one of the second rows (out of two). The venue was the sports hall of a gymnasium, with bad lighting, and bad-quality speakers for the background music track. Once, after more than half an hour of waiting for the show to start, we witnessed the clothes which were not easy to objectively appreciate (also because of the reasons mentioned above). What was the reason for the designers to produce this collection? Necessity to create? Opportunity to express themselves via this interaction? An option (expensive one it must be) to sell? I didn’t find the answer to all these questions while watching the models passing by. Five minutes after I had left the venue, I could barely remember the looks.
Somewhere else designers of highly capitalist brands try to surprise the audience by transforming the venues into the public WC, compensating for the meaningless proposition of being stuck somewhere in the glorious years of Gucci looks by the incendiary environment which is supposed to become viral in a second. Questioning the essence of the brand’s DNA – how far we can go into the provocation, both in terms of price tag and design, to be still accepted by the clients. The latex top with large, pendulous, bouncy breasts on a male model’s closing look at the Duran Lantink show attracted the attention of all. However, the rest of the collection offered the audience a fresh vision, newness, skilful silhouettes, and padding techniques proper to this Dutch designer. Here fashion is talking. No nostalgia, no too-present commercial goals, no pain, but a good dose of humour combined with smart craft. Even if I doubtfully become Lantink’s client, I would support his fashion journey.
Photos by @glazamirz from @juliekegels FW25 show
On my last day of Paris Fashion Week with a colleague, we went to see the Dolce & Gabbana exhibit “Du cœur à la main” in the Grand Palais. The only slot that was available for this highly demanded exhibit was at 10:00 pm. After the full day of presentations, shows, and the latest collection of Balenciaga by Demna we found ourselves in the “safe” space where fashion gains a new dimension. More than “haute couture”, it was the Art. “Art de vivre” as French hedonists would say. Incredible craftsmanship of the handmade pieces, the ambience, the music, and even the smell of perfumes. More than a regular museum visit, we plunged into the world of the Italian creative duo which seems to be so surreally beautiful, rich, and full of contacts but magical and inspiring. Mesmerising. Left me almost speechless, in a deep need to process the clash with the events we assisted earlier the same day. The violence was to come back to the reality where Gvasalia and Michele were trying to persuade us of the purpose of their fashion. In vain.
Street photos by @glazamirz
So many brands, clothes, and designs, in such a concentrated amount of time and space. Paris Fashion Week proposes everything you dream and have nightmares of. The choice is yours. But first, stop for a while, close your eyes, and ask yourself: what am I doing here?