What a lot of people don’t know about fashion week, is that once the runways are over, and the circus of celebrities and street-style stars have gone home, that the real work starts. The collections are then rehoused in various showrooms across the city, and for the next week, the PRs host editors, buyers and their top customers for a more intimate look at the entire line in what is known in the industry as a “re-see”.
Often there is coffee and flowers, and vast white desks where the orders are documented projecting the brand’s bottom line for the next season. Without the glitzy trappings of the catwalk, the fresh-faced showroom models try on the looks for the global army of buying directors and stylists who decide if this season was a hit, or not – this is the real business of fashion.
We captured the Swedish showroom models Alice Blomfeldt and Emelie Fredengren at the Acne Studios re-see during their lunch breaks on the streets of La Chapelle. The colourful setting of Paris’s most bustling district on the Northern outskirts – a favourite of young artists – was the perfect backdrop for SS17’s neon-pastel kimonos, ethnic-inspired prints and white-stitched denim overalls.
Photos by Nico Stinghe