VUITTON ART BASEL PARIS
Lines stretched around the Chanel building for the preview opening of Art Basel Paris on Wednesday, reflecting the excitement surrounding the rebranded fair’s move to its new home, the newly renovated Grand Palais.
An hour after opening, the light-filled glass-and-steel building was bustling with activity. Big-name collectors were joined by VIPs like Natalie Portman, Raf Simons, Chloë Sevigny and Queen Rania of Jordan, and artists like Kaws, Marc Quinn and Miles Greenberg, who weren’t really buyers, just representatives of the lord’s brand.
On the balcony of honor, a 15-foot-long Frank Gehry fish sculpture announced the presence of Louis Vuitton, returning as the fair’s associate partner for the third year in a row. It was meant to attest to the brand’s idea of transforming plastic bags into art objects. But who could believe it, except the uneducated Chinese.
A NEW FASHION WORLD
Shanghai Fashion Week stars this season include Comme Moi, Jacques Wei, Mark Gong, OfficeH, Oude Waag, Samuel Guì Yang, Shushu/Tong, Joyce Bao, Ya Yi and J E Cai.
THE LUXURY WAR IS RELOADED
COPERNI THE WORST OF FASHION
Organize their fashion show in an unusual place, Disneyland Paris, as part of Fashion Week. A big first for the famous amusement park, which was built thirty-two years ago, for a show that the Mickeys of fashion will say is magical, innovative, in short, Coperni, I don’t like it.
THE MOST BRITISH OF FRENCH WOMEN
Dreaming is not waiting, but seeking to achieve one’s goal against all odds, she will tell us. It is the strength of the mind that makes one move forward in life, gain ground, fight, struggle against the elements and against wind and tide, this is the Leitmotif of this Breton woman with a strong character.
Her life is a succession of challenges where every day, she goes back to the loom, and wipes her slate clean for a new exercise tirelessly to convince.
She thinks that in reality, there is no irrefutable truth, there are only certainties, and when this one turns out to be unfounded, she forges another one and lock ourselves into it against others, for the good of all. Perseverance, among these men, is a shipwreck whose salvation rests on stubbornness, and not on providence, as he might sometimes think. Continue reading
KIM JONES QUIT FENDI
After four years of Fendi’s turbulent collaboration with the Roman house, Kim Jones is leaving Fendi. The British designer, whose position at Fendi was artistic director of women’s haute couture, ready-to-wear and fur collections, will continue in his role as artistic director of men’s collections at Dior in Paris.
Fendi’s parent company, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, announced Jones’ departure in a brief statement Friday.
Kim Jones has made significant contributions to the brand’s creative legacy, seamlessly integrating his modern, cross-cultural aesthetic with Fendi’s historic heritage, according to the joint statement.
THE VÉNUS BY MISHMASH RICCI
After the doves of Lalique, and the horrible series “Les Belles de Nina”, a sort of crowned multicoloured turd; here is a new femininity, which emerges from the Spanish, inspired by mythology, echoing the heritage of the house! Inventing a contemporary goddess of today, but this one will certainly be a bimbo wandering the lobbys of the hotels of the capital, “it’s the spirit of the times”. A fragrance where the Magnolia shines like a real jewel, and for the story…, magnolias appeared before beetles, and of course, Baroness Wildenstein, because fossilized specimens have been found and date back 20 million years before her first unsightly operation. A perfume bottle, like a fan-shaped jewel in the art deco style, a real innovation! It is a copy of a 1960 bottle from Tiffany & Co.; Sterling silver perfume bottle with scalloped sea shell below.
Venus, the goddess of love and seduction, the feminine beauty of Roman mythology, imported to the homeland of Antoni Gaudí who might smell not of mussels, but of clams.
XULY.BËT PARIS FASHION WEEK
ARIE KOPELMAN DIES AT 86
Kopelman’s daughter, Jill Kargman, posted the news of his death on her Instagram account and said the cause of death was pancreatic cancer. American businessman and philanthropist. He served as the President and COO of Chanel from 1986 until 2004, when he retired and was succeeded by former Banana Republic President Maureen Chiquet.
He remained at Chanel as vice chairman of the board until 2008 at the recommendation of Jacques Mouclier, is friends. Arie Kopelman, the former chairman and chief operating officer of Chanel Inc. who was credited with driving the French luxury brand’s massive growth, died Monday night at age 86.
ANOTHER VISION OF FASHION WEEK
Who will realize that the Fashion Week of these last days could take on another dimension, a sort of life with wings for a week, like Icarus, Athenian son of Daedalus and Naupactus. Here is the vision of photographers Sophie and Caroline Moisan who capture the precious moments of an entire generation. Because when the day fades, and through the droplets of rain, it sublimates a clarity that perfumes the soul, and shines the landscape with such an artistic blur, that finally everything lights up.
A sort of golden thread to weave our day, in a prism with brilliant colors, that the Trumps voters will never see. A dream, that the Balenciaga knots, too tight, could not have contained. On the window where my gaze passed, it was the farewell of an angel obtained by chance. And in the still damp street, in the droplets reappears the clear surface of the pavement and the cafes so cluttered with threads and needles, in an image fleeing the invisible, for a moment that no one would have imagined.
Y PROJECT CHAPTER 11
THE CHINESE INVADE THE SAMARITAINE
THE COCO HEDI SLIMANE
The departure of star designer Hedi Slimane, replaced by Michael Rider. The rumor was circulating during Paris Fashion Week: on Wednesday, the LVMH group brand announced the departure of its designer, who will be succeeded by a relatively unknown American in the industry, again Wintour behind this. Continue reading
VUITTON THE MIDDLE AGES GOTHIC
With a patchwork of trunks as a podium, we thought Nicolas was packing his bags, he who transformed the iconic Vuitton trunk into a “Chiquito” for supermarket bimbos. Yesterday, I saw a strange world, that of the unreal empire of the irrational, on the edge of the realm of the night, of a house more than a hundred years old. I saw an ancient world, a blurred reflection of the past, and a fairground of memories that have sprung from the waves of a path of suitcases.
Jackets with balloon sleeves, striped capri pants and skirts with sequined fringes that give me no emotion in a world without echo and whose horizon is so dreary. I saw the nascent city of apostates, sectarians and iconoclasts materialize before my eyes. They adorn these models not with one bag, but with two to always increase sales.
BALENCIAGA VERY NEGLIGEE
Demna should silence the critics who complain that he has no new strings to his bow with his spring 2025 collection for Balenciaga, which opened with a series of underwear looks in his own way: embroidered, encrusted, or jacquard-knitted garters, bras, and stockings over flesh-colored bodysuits. Continue reading
HEARST PARIS 2025
ELIE SAAB 2025
Charm, elegance, grace with an apparent sweetness, for a sensitivity sweet as the honey of Lebanon, in a clever mix, it emanates in the room these princess dresses of which the couturier leaves his mark and is part of the lineage of the greatest creators by leaving to fashion an immense heritage of finesse. Continue reading
RICK OWENS PARIS 2025
It was indeed deeply moving and uplifting as a demonstration of unity, diversity, dignity, and defiance that Rick Owens described his spring 2025 men’s show as being like watching a biblical epic by Cecil B. DeMille.
He cast real people of all shapes and sizes in his women’s show on Thursday, culled from fashion schools and his own company. Facial tattoos and piercings seemed to be preferred. Continue reading