Explosive line-up for next Paris Men’s Fashion Week
The most avant-garde names in men’s fashion seem to have all converged in Paris. It is the turn of the French capital to host the next stage in the fashion week series, one that confirms its dominant position and unrivalled appeal. Never before has the Paris Men's Fashion Week featured a line-up as captivating and exciting as this season. From Tuesday January 15 to Sunday 20, the City of Light will host 56 catwalk shows for the Autumn/Winter 2019-20 menswear collections, as opposed to 50 last June.
It's an enticing program, which nonetheless risks being disrupted on Saturday, January 19, due to the 'yellow vest' protests. This has led to some brands shifting their show times, such as Thom Browne, which will now host its runway earlier in the day, and Dior, which has moved its show to 6 p.m. on January 18, forcing Enfant Riches Déprimés, whose off-calendar show was slated for the same time slot, to move its presentation to 8 p.m. Sacai's show has been brought forward to 9 a.m. on Saturday, while Andrea Crews will stage its show at 1 p.m instead of 3 p.m.
Alongside top names like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Hermès, Balmain and the ever-present posse of Japanese designers, the calendar features no less than 11 new entries, between rookies and major come-backs, prestigious labels and emerging designers, while five labels have dropped out: Y/Project, which showed at Pitti Uomo this season; Maison Margiela and Agnès b, which opted for co-ed shows during the womenswear week from 2019; Lanvin, which was bought last February by Chinese group Fosun International and is giving the event a miss, as its creative director of menswear, Lucas Ossendrijver, recently left after 14 years; and Alexander McQueen, which decided to present its menswear collections by staging a more private kind of event, the first being scheduled in London for May 2019.
These withdrawals are more than compensated by a plethora of new names, including the eagerly awaited Celine Homme show by Hedi Slimane, which will close the week on Sunday 20 at 8 p.m., and is set to mark a crucial new chapter in the Parisian label’s history. The Celine men’s looks previewed in September with the women’s collection (see picture above) went down very well with buyers. Slimane revolutionised the masculine figure after he moved to Dior in the early 2000s, and he will not fail to create a buzz.
Another collection which has the fashion world on tenterhooks is Berluti’s, now designed by Kris Van Assche, after the French label gave the fashion week a miss in June, following the departure of Haider Ackermann. Van Assche, who styled Dior’s menswear for 11 years, revealed some of his new looks last October, and rechristened the label 1895 Berluti Paris. The Belgian designer’s debut show, scheduled on Friday 18 at 1 p.m., is awaited with bated breath.
Besides Berluti’s, two other big come-backs are worth mentioning: that of Vetements, which showed during the haute couture week last July and is now back on the menswear calendar, and of Raf Simons, back in Paris after showing for two years in New York. The Belgian designer, recently dismissed by Calvin Klein, where he had served as creative director since August 2016, had settled in New York, where he also showed with his own menswear label, though his American adventure seems to have now drawn to a close.
Among the new stars on the calendar is Irish designer Jonathan Anderson, who is leaving London for one season to present the latest collection for his J.W. Anderson label in Paris. He will also feature on Saturday 19 with Loewe, the Spanish label whose design he is in charge of, which is making its debut on the Paris menswear calendar.
Two other highlights are the very first show by Jil Sander in Paris, on Friday 18, the German label deserting the Milanese catwalks after many years, and that of the Jacquemus menswear collection, launched last summer with a show in Marseilles. Tabs will also be kept on the second collections by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton, showing on Thursday 17, and by Kim Jones for Dior, on Saturday 19, as well as on the show on Sunday 20 by Alyx, which premièred in Paris last June.
The week's first day, Tuesday 15, will be a concentrate of novelty and another of the event's defining moments, with three of fashion’s hottest labels featuring on the Parisian calendar for the first time. US designer Heron Preston will open the dance at 3 p.m. with his street/workwear/couture label, which was launched in early 2017 and has grown explosively since.
It will be followed at 4 p.m. by Fumito Ganryu, who has chosen Paris after the highly successful launch, last June at Pitti Uomo in Florence, of his new line of sporty casualwear with a distinctive athleisure vibe. Finally, at 8 p.m., the spotlight will shine on another talented Japanese designer, Takahiro Miyashita, renowned for his experimental urban aesthetic. Miyashita showed at the Paris Men’s Fashion Week in the past, with his first label, Number (N)ine, which he founded in 1996 and terminated in 2009. He is back in Paris with his new label, Takahiromiyashita The Soloist, launched in 2010, which showed for the first time in Tokyo and at Pitti Uomo in Florence, in January 2018. The day will end with the off-calendar show of Danish luxury streetwear label Han Kjøbenhavn.
Paris will also be a-glitter with a spate of very exciting presentations, again featuring several new names and major debuts. Starting on Friday 18 with Maison Kitsuné, which will unveil the first collection by its new creative director, South Korean designer Yuni Ahn, formerly in charge of style for the pre-collections and show collections at Céline, after designing accessories for several seasons under the aegis of Phoebe Philo.
On Saturday 19, Rochas Homme too will start a fresh chapter, under new creative director Federico Curradi, and so will Smalto, showing the first collection by newly-arrived head designer Jean-Luc Amsler on Friday 18. Among the most eagerly awaited, must-see presentations, also those of Clot, the label by Hong Kong designers Edison Chen and Kevin Poon, of South Korean label System and of rookie French label Oneculture. Also, sustainable label Phipps, launched last year by Spencer Phipps, a former menswear stylist at Dries Van Noten, Japanese label Yoshio Kubo and finally Lazoschmidl, founded in 2014 by the Swedish-German duo of Josef Lazo and Andreas Schmidl, which habitually shows in Stockholm.
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