Left-R: Valentino, Jean Paul Gaultier and Dior couture spring 2020.
After months of beading, feathering and hand stitching, we finally get couture week. While it is traditionally a celebration of fashion’s highest level of craftsmanship, it’s exuberance also primes the event for viral imagery that can capture the world’s mood. We rounded up some of our favourite moments from this year’s spring 2020 edition.
Jean Paul Gaultier says goodbye
Courtesy of Jean Paul Gaultier.
After more than 20 years of creating couture masterpieces, Jean Paul Gaultier sent his final collection down the runway — and he did so with a bang. The cast was filled with his unique muses from the years, including Coco Rocha, Dita von Teese, Anne Cleveland, and Violet Chachki, while Boy George closed out the show with a performance.
Upcycling at Margiela
Courtesy of @maisonmargiela
While many designers have started to reuse old materials in their collections to help curb fashion’s huge waste problem, couture collections—which are traditionally seen as a place to pull out all the stops—have been exempt so far. John Galliano broke with tradition to include vintage fabrics in his collection, which borrowed heavily from the aesthetic of porous plastic packaging. We also couldn’t help but notice some new iterations of the cloven Tabi boot under the garments.
Gift-wrapped at Valentino
Collection courtesy of Valentino.
For some reason nothing says glamour quite like an oversized bow. For Valentino’s spring 2020 couture collection, Pierpaolo Piccioli sent down gowns that were channeling the tied-up elegance of Audrey Hepburn’s racetrack dress from My Fair Lady and Marilyn Monroe’s pink performance number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Judy Chicago takes over at Dior
Collection courtesy of Dior.
Fittingly staged in Paris’ Musée Rodin, Judy Chicago created the installation The Divine Feminine, which served as the backdrop for Maria Grazia Chiuri’s goddess-inspired collection. One of the most circulated images to come out of Chicago’s work for the show, was a tapestry querying,“What if Women Ruled the World?”
Kaia Gerber’s Givenchy bridal moment
Courtesy of @givenchyofficial.
While finishing off a couture collection with a wedding dress can be an almost-antiquated tradition, it’s always fun to see when the formulaic closure is used to present a sculptural and off-beat take on the white gown. For the last look at Givenchy, Kaia Gerber glided down the runway with a veil almost three-times her body size, which acted like a moving backdrop.