7 trends spotted at the Fall/Winter 2023-2024 Fashion Week

Fall/Winter 2023-2024 trends: back to the quintessential style

On the catwalks of the Fall/Winter 2023- 2024 Fashion Week, some of the major houses presented landmark collections to initiate the comeback to their quintessential style. A trend that paradoxically stems from a desire to assert a creative heritage, which sometimes goes back several decades. First, there was the Prada show in Milan, where Miuccia Prada, heir of the Italian brand, and Raf Simons, co-creator since 2020, signed a range of deceptively classic creations inspired by the masculine codes and celebrating a beauty coming out of simplicity. Then, at the Balenciaga show, Demna got over a scandal-ridden few months with a radical collection building on Cristóbal Balenciaga’s vision. The latter founded the house in 1917 with a focus on deconstructed and/or reconstructed tailoring and reworked the contemporary wardrobe classics. For her Fall/Winter 2023-2024 collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri subtlety revisited the early days of the house of Dior founded in 1947. Inspired by the
1950s style of singers Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco, she designed pieces with fitted waists, straight skirts, and corolla dresses. True to her feminist approach, she incorporated a touch of casualness, sensuality, and even androgyny. At the Saint Laurent show, Anthony Vaccarello interpreted the legacy of the French fashion designer through the reworking of a garment that helped forge his legend – the skirt suit is more fatal and, above all, more contemporary than ever. A classic of the women’s wardrobe since the 1950s, that piece is also the origin of the iconic trouser suit, popularized by Yves Saint Laurent in the 1960s. Finally, after several shows taking the shape of music festivals, Olivier Rousteing went back to a more intimate layout and unveiled a Balmain collection inspired by the house’s archives, combining big bows, polka dots, and large hats. A light and elegant style as a tribute to the fashion designer Pierre Balmain and his “new French style”.

Fall/Winter 2023-2024 trends: the red dress

If the little black dress has been a symbol of elegance for more than a century now, the red dress gives off a heady scent of sensuality. Thus, after several seasons of lingerie-inspired see-through dresses, and of dominatrix-like leather or vinyl dresses, this Fashion Week marks the great comeback of the red dress and with it, a Fall/Winter 2023-2024 fashion style based on seduction and glamour – femme fatales’ poisonous red dresses with multiples references to the collections from the 1990s at the Alexander McQueen show, a chic gothic blood red satin dress at Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s first show for Ann Demeulemeester, velvet dresses at Alberta Ferretti, and a punk red wide slit shirtdress accessorized with a tie in Valentino’s Black Tie collection. While Matthieu Blazy offers a radical, hypnotic version of the red dress at Bottega Veneta, the garment is available in minimalist mesh versions at Courrèges, Loewe, and Fendi, and in leather at Alexander McQueen and Proenza Schouler. See-through and adorned with lace or ruffles, the flashy sexy red dresses on the catwalks of Mugler, Blumarine, Dilara Findikoglu, Gucci, and Ester Manas will certainly seduce the it-girls who will do anything to be noticed – even defying the cold. Finally, Ferragamo, Lanvin, and Michael Kors signed a collection of red disco dresses made of lamé fabrics or sequins, to the greatest delight of the party girls. Carolina Herrera and her majestic tone-on-tone evening gown in floral fabric was memorable.
(LZ)

Fall/Winter 2023-2024 trends: the micro bra 

Everything small is cute. But if the catwalks are to be believed this season, everything mini or even micro is decidedly fatal. Throwback. In 1996, Karl Lagerfeld once again disrupted the legacy of Chanel with the model Stella Tennant walking down the runway wearing an ultra-minimalist, tiny black bikini with little but the Parisian house’s monogram to cover her nipples. Haunted by this uninhibited vision of the woman, the fashion world seems to want to keep the memory of this seductive and subversive piece alive. Indeed, during this Fall/Winter 2023-2024 Fashion Week, the micro bra makes a flamboyant comeback in the collections. Seen on the opening silhouette of the Gucci show, it takes the shape of a silver chain highlighting two small triangles with the house’s logo barely covering the nipples. At GCDS, on a half- bourgeois, half-sultry silhouette, that piece is reworked in metal to mimic two small bows, while Ludovic de Saint Sernin imagines it in a horizontal leather feather floating delicately on the skin at Ann Demeulemeester. When it comes to Nensi Dojaka, winner of the LVMH prize in 2021, she offers in nude tulle version enhanced by two red bobbles, like blooming flowers from which two fine black strings are extracted from the pistil. Vaquera’s threadbare cover-ups, Luis de Javier’s diabolical red horns, or Didu’s flower and light feathers… each designer conceives an ever smaller and daring variation. Nipples will – almost – be free next winter, to our greatest delight.

(EC)

Fall/Winter 2023-2024 trends: the bow tie

While many collections of this Fall/Winter 2023-2024 Fashion Week paid tribute to haute couture, the bow tie reappeared as a guest star on many pieces, even to the point of becoming the centerpiece of the shows. To offer his own definition of the “French style”, Olivier Rousteing used large format of that ornament on many silhouettes of his Balmain show – boiled wool on a matching fuchsia jumper, satin on an emerald green blazer-dress, or vinyl on the left side of a short skirt, as if it was an extension of its drape. Dozens of small red bow tie appear on a shirtdress at Valentino, while they are discreetly invited on the sleeves of a black coat at GmbH. Among the bows on Moschino’s and Nina Ricci’s flamboyant dresses, or Marie Adam-Leenaerdt’s huge golden one wrapping a pink dress like a gift box, this season will undoubtedly be marked by XXL bows.

(MJ)

Fall/Winter 2023-2024 trends: the tartan

It is hard to think of anything more emblematic of Great Britain than tartan. On a kilt or a plaid, this pattern, which we no longer hear about, is making a comeback this Fall/Winter 2023-2024 Fashion Week. On the catwalks, designers use their imagination to reinterpret the woolen fabric, whose stripes and patterns originally designated a specific clan. At Tom Browne in New York for instance, tartan covers large, oversized tweed coats with excessive stripes and is even combined with cashmere in dresses with shoulder pads. As a result of his heritage, the designer Daniel Lee uses the famous pattern on numerous silhouettes in his first collection for Burberry in London, this time, in a pop color palette combining pink and purple, or yellow and electric blue. In Paris, tartan ended its epic journey in the big fashion houses, where designers were very inspired by the 1950s and 1060s. While Anthony Vaccarello remained sober for Saint Laurent with an elegantly draped plaid worn as a cape, an oversized coat, a tube skirt, and a lavalier- collared shirt, Maria Grazia Chiuri used tartan on a multitude of Dior corolla dresses and full skirts, which seemed to have come straight from the Swinging London. Tartan was also present in Issey Miyake’ silhouettes or available in a sultry skirt suit version at Pressiat. It was a prerequisite at the Vivienne Westwood by Andreas Kronthaler show, as a tribute to the punk designer who died in December 2022 and whose creations will be exhibited in April at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Dundee, Scotland, dedicated to the influence of tartan throughout the centuries.

(CBM)

Fall/Winter 2023-2024 Trends: the feathers

Airy and glamorous, but also symbols of freedom, feathers immediately give a couture or rock’n’roll aura to an outfit. Among the most remarkable pieces of this Fashion Week are Valentino’s black and white feather coats, which complete the graphic Black Tie collection, or Bottega Veneta’s aqua coat in ostrich feathers. At Loewe, Jonathan Anderson offers surprisingly minimalist tops and trousers coming out of the superposition of large goose feathers, while Coperni bets on a futuristic effect with the association of skirts and tops in silver metal feathers. For his first Burberry show, Daniel Lee celebrates the duck – the animal behind many English humorous phrases – with dresses and coats made by the prestigious feather maker Lemarié. At Nina Ricci, Harris Reed opts for extravagance with flashy looks, unwearable in real life. Used in touches, feathers and their vaporous hems become a playful ornament at Germanier, JW Anderson, Ester Manas, and Nina Ricci. At the Chanel show, they evoke the iconic camellia, while at Bottega Veneta and Gucci, feathers highlight body curves. In the Roberto Cavalli’s wardrobe designed for rock stars, they are an ornament on dresses and trouser, while Ludovic de Saint Sernin for Ann Demeulemeester turns them into an emblem with two grungy and minimalist leather mini bras for both his first and final looks. The very trendy American designer Raul Lopez gives the Luar show a dramatic touch with necklaces, collars, and shoe jewelry made of spectacular feathers, just like Victoria Beckham, whose collection inspired by Edith Bouvier, Jackie Kennedy’s eccentric cousin, features feathers nestling in necklines or hollows of the back.

(LZ)

Fall/Winter 2023-2024 trends: the innovative leather

Although leather is a staple of ready-to- wear collections, few are the designers who create new proposals with it. However, the fabric is being renewed by numerous labels and houses this season. At Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquière embroiders flowers on it or grooves it to create textures, while Chanel meticulously pads it to imitate camellia petals on a coat, and Jil Sander embosses it in the shape of the label’s logo on an electric blue biker jacket. Another strong trend emerging from these Fall/Winter 2023-2024 shows are the draped and sensual leathers. It emerges triumphant in ultra-fluid suits in Ludovic de Saint Sernin’s his first collection for Ann Demeulemeester, as well as in the wide stoles wrapped around the shoulders at Saint Laurent. Innovation goes even further at Bottega Veneta and Alexander McQueen, which both demonstrate their ability to work with leather in order to give an impression of denim, cotton, wool, or poplin, and create unsettling trompe-l’oeil effects. At last, the shine and fluidity of leather stem from satin at the Stella McCartney and Courrèges shows.

(MJ)