Paris, city of light and capital of fashion, is now the scene of a Fashion Week that has been reduced to a champagne cork. Forget the monumental catwalks, the quivering crowds and the pharaonic happenings. This season, the designers decided to play hide-and-seek with the guests, stashing their collections in pocket lounges, shoeboxes and, at this rate, soon in an AirBnB in the Marais.

The lucky few were therefore able to attend the ultra-intimate shows of this edition. At Givenchy, Sarah Burton orchestrated her grand premiere in front of 300 people. A terrifying number, almost a human tide in this new fashion order. Alongside them, Tom Ford and Haider Ackermann rivalled each other in their ingenuity: a lounge atmosphere, subdued lighting, dry martinis and, above all, a guest list so short that even the models were reluctant to enter. If you weren’t one of the 200 happy few invited, there was no need to insist: you weren’t invited, and that’s the whole point.

The real reason for this drastic reduction is said to be a desire for exclusivity. A return to intimacy, savoir-faire and refinement. In other words: if you’re not on the list, you’re not worthy. And if you are on the list, congratulations, you’ve just reached an even more select level of snobbery than the previous ones.

While some are playing an escape game version of Fashion Week, others, like Dior, still prefer to see things in the big time, but with an ultra-calculated staging, and it’s true that they have privatised the city of Paris.

In this age of the ultra-selective, the ultimate grail is no longer having a seat in the front row. No, the real privilege is to be one of the few to know that the show has taken place. A model already tried and tested by Jacquemus, which invited just 45 people to a historic flat, and which is being emulated.

At this rate, the next step will be the invisible fashion show. A collection unveiled only by telepathic invitation, where people will be ecstatic over clothes they’ll never see, in a room that doesn’t exist, in the presence of fictitious guests. The future of fashion? A mystical experience, an enigma reserved for the initiated, an unattainable dream… In short, Fashion Week, and sometimes that’s better for certain designers.

FM