8 labels spotted at the Paris Spring-Summer 2023 Fashion Week

1. The American Dream of Meryll Rogge

 

A post-pandemic trip to Los Angeles inspired Meryll Rogge to create her first unisex collection. After living in New York for six years and immersing herself in the American culture, the Belgian designer captured the Californian spirit of freedom for the Spring-Summer 2023 season. The semi-finalist of the LVMH 2022 Prize combines a mix of streetwear pieces, made of jersey and denim, with a couture wardrobe. An off-white evening gown with spectacular proportions is paired with sports socks, while black patent urban shoes go with oversized jogging shorts. Entitled Made on Earth by Humans, the collection features a collaboration with Swiss artist Beni Bischof. For the occasion, he presents an interesting pair of raw jeans ornamented with the provocative motto Do Nothing Club. His naive drawings are delightfully intertwined with cynical writings on several pieces.

2. Designer Didu’s sensual armors

 

The Chinese designer Didu presented her Spring-Summer 2023 collection in a clay smelling crypt-inspired setting. The models take the space between these concrete walls in hieratic positions. A naked woman covered in clay with horse legs lies still on the ground. The hands of the models are also dipped in green clay, evoking a mysterious and subtle link between these different creatures. Known for developing futuristic universes, Didu dives into present-day frustration and angst for this collection. Entitled I can’t hyde my anger, the collection gathers a series of sensual pieces staged in a post-apocalyptic universe and explores the impact of the violence of the world on our body with a wardrobe composed of armor-like outfits, such as this corset made of superimposed belts. The bare skin, whether revealed or hidden, is treated as fabric here. Hooded tops open in the back playing on the contrast between dressed and undressed, clothing and nudity. Trellis, camouflage fabrics, cowboy hats, and buckle belts rightly encompass inspirations from the American West, Y2K years, and mythology.

3. Denim, sex, and latex by Miaou

 

For its debut at the Paris Fashion Week, the young label Miaou, based in Los Angeles and in the French capital, has opted for the post-modern architecture of the French Communist Party’s former headquarters, designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, to present its Spring-Summer 2023 wardrobe. This season, the label founded in 2016 by Alexia Elkaim, spreads its sensual and body conscious DNA into a cool and punk wardrobe. The models enter on the catwalk in a dark room, where a single camera illuminates the silhouettes to the beat of a techno soundtrack. In the collection, the skin is revealed through erotic lingerie, such as this low-cut bodysuit worn with carmine red latex stockings. Next to the satin outfits composed of a ravishing bra revealing the chest covered with piercings, denim takes a prominent place. Available in a range of low-rise trousers, mini-skirts, or eyelet dresses, the fabric is combined with leather jackets and gabardine corsets. This season is definitely one of uncompromising sexiness.

4. Exalted and asymmetrical curves in Michaela Stark’s lingerie

 

In two years only, designer Michaela Stark has made a name for herself with her exuberant creations, exalting the curves and the smallest corners of her body. Obsessed by corsets, the Australian designer develops her work at the crossroads between art and fashion, against the diktats imposed on women’s bodies. Clothing is a tool she uses to deform her body during her performances, such as the one at 3537 in 2021, where she adapted a whole range of pieces by Jean Paul Gaultier that she cut out and assembled on her body. For this Spring-Summer 2023 Fashion Week, she presents her first lingerie, corset, and accessories collection in limited edition. The designer offers delicate pieces made of precious fabrics, such as silk, organza, lace, and French muslin, in vibrant colors – powder pink, fuchsia, khaki, and camel. The collection includes a range of her iconic Asymetrical Boob corsets, which reveals one breast. Other lingerie pieces, like camisoles and babydolls, express a type of decadent femininity through the superimposition of puffy volumes on the hips. Suspenders rub shoulders with pleated knickers for an all-out transparent result. Through this collection and custom-made pieces, Michaela Stark shares her vision of femininity and offers her customers a chance to celebrate their body.

5. The ode to childhood in Meruert Tolegen’s bucolic collection

 

Designer Meruert Tolegen has drawn her inspiration from her childhood memories for her bucolic Spring-Summer 2023 collection. A question drives the creative work of this collection: “If one were to close their eyes, and try remembering the textures of their memories, what would one find?” The Kazakhstan-born American designer used to live in Almaty as a child. There, she used to sit daily against a large window and look at the mountains and the spectacle of nature. As a tribute to her childhood, Meruert Tolegen assembles fragments of her memories into dresses and embroidered coats made of flimsy fabrics. A coat ornamented with a sequined collar emerges on a satin fabric with pomegranates and wildflowers prints. A see-through dress in pleated organza comes to life thanks to subtle embroideries with plant patterns. Flounces made of airy fabrics dress the straps of a black backless second skin dress. The marvelous universe of a collection that invites to express the poetry present in each one of us…

6. Fringes, leather, and big belts by EENK

 

Each season, the young Korean label EENK uses a new letter of the alphabet to start its collection. This year, the “W” feeds the imagination of the designer Hyemee Lee, who chooses the American Wild West as her guideline. At the crossroads between different eras, from the Gold Rush to the reign of Jazz, the silhouettes alternate between elegant dresses trimmed with fringes, matching denim looks, or leather ensembles accessorized with heavy belts. The looks are declined in a restricted but perfectly mastered chromatic palette, mixing shades of blue on a single outfit, bright but not kitsch red, or white and black to compose elegant looks. Taking over the Palais de Tokyo for its very first Parisian show, EENK seduced its audience with an unexpected charm – a private concert by Carla Bruni, accompanying the models with her delicate voice.

7. Cool and sophisticated fashion by Minuit

 

The two-year-old label is already part of the prestigious Paris Fashion Week calendar. Its artistic director, Laurie Arbellot, who trained at Proenza Schouler, is betting on timeless fashion. Composed of essential pieces, her wardrobe goes beyond trends, such as the dresses with smocked necklines available in long or short versions, the straight jeans to pair with a matching jacket, or the satin blouses… Yet the designer also likes to offer contemporary and fanciful silhouettes like a pair of shiny apple green trousers – taking up one of the label’s first successes, whose sky-blue version has been worn by numerous influencers such as Carla Ginola – or black and see-through outfits embroidered with the acronym “Minuit”, to wear with a bodysuit and big boots.

8. Less is more by Rui

 

One of Rui’s main materials? The body. Founded in 2019 by designer Rui Zhou, who was one of the finalists for the LVMH Prize in 2021, the young label offers openwork garments, whose holes sometimes reduce the fabric to a bunch of threads. In the basement of a small space in the Marais, she presented her latest Spring-Summer 2023 collection in a confined, almost stressful atmosphere. Broken pieces of a mirror scattered on the floor suggest that an argument, or even a violent scene, has happened here and echo the shibari performance [Japanese bondage] taking place next to the racks of clothes. Made of stretch fabrics, the looks hug and mold the body, while sultry cut-outs reveal the skin, the main material used on most of the silhouettes. Rui Zhou does not create clothes for the faint-hearted nor for those who feel the cold.