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Paris Fashion Week SS18
LifestyleFashion & Beauty

How Paris Fashion Week has weathered online revolution so far and lured more fashion designers to put on shows

The City of Light remains the epicentre and spiritual heart of design, as Paris Fashion Week brought in top labels from around the world, some moving their shows from Milan and New York, and others showing for the first time

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An eclectic look from Thom Browne’s spring-summer 2018 ready-to-wear collection. Photo: EPA
Melissa TwiggandJing Zhang

Paris can feel like a museum. Beautiful and endlessly fascinating, but still more firmly entrenched in the past than the present. However, the city is still the epicentre of haute couture. This is no small thing, because the industry feels much less geographically concentrated since the online revolution.

Paris has fought tooth and nail against this gradual slide away from the traditional fashion week – and it looks like it has succeeded.

Looks from Chanel’s spring/summer 2018 women’s collection in Paris. Photo: Xinhua/Piero Biasion
Looks from Chanel’s spring/summer 2018 women’s collection in Paris. Photo: Xinhua/Piero Biasion
From Saint Laurent’s epic show set against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower, to Chanel’s that included constructing a waterfall and cliffs inside the Grand Palais, to Louis Vuitton’s latest catwalk show in the bowels of the Louvre Museum – the biggest luxury brands, which happen to be mostly French, prove that Paris knows how to put on a show.

L’Oreal brings diversity to Champs-Élysées runway as Helen Mirren and Jane Fonda lead the show

Even make-up giant L’Oreal got in on the act this season, featuring an array of celebrities (including Jane Fonda and Helen Mirren) walking down the middle of the famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

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A look from Thom Browne’s spring-summer 2018 ready-to-wear collection at Paris Fashion Week. Photo: EPA
A look from Thom Browne’s spring-summer 2018 ready-to-wear collection at Paris Fashion Week. Photo: EPA
This year, the pull of the city has lured many of the world’s top designers who don’t live in the French capital (including New Yorkers Thom Browne and Altuzarra) to Paris’ cobbled streets, atmospheric ateliers and grand showrooms.
Masha Ma is one of a number of Chinese labels showing at Paris Fashion Week. Photo: Xinhua/Piero Biasion
Masha Ma is one of a number of Chinese labels showing at Paris Fashion Week. Photo: Xinhua/Piero Biasion
Chinese designers Yang Li, Masha Ma and most recently Uma Wang show there regularly. Wang moved last season from showing in Milan to Parisgain more exposure.
“I’m showing at Paris Fashion Week, as the feel of the collection corresponds naturally with the atmosphere and the clients that are there,” says Ma, who moved her show from the British capital a few years ago.
A look from Masha Ma’s spring-summer 2018 women’s collection. Photo: Xinhua/Piero Biasion
A look from Masha Ma’s spring-summer 2018 women’s collection. Photo: Xinhua/Piero Biasion
Ma’s collection took inspiration from Wong Kar-wai’s film 2046 for her show at the Palais de Tokyo, with striped, edgy suiting paired with sporty outwear and killer, thigh-high vinyl boots.
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Wang, whose romantic aesthetic and long languid silhouettes have found plenty of fans in China and Europe, decided to show in Paris after she met Michéle Montagne, her new head of PR.

“The Paris scene is very important for the visibility it offers a brand: all the big buyers and press are here and it’s easier for them to follow the Uma Wang story,” she says.

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