The Most Memorable Moments Of Couture AW24
When the heatwave is over and the haute Chanel bows have been appropriated by the high street, what will Paris Couture Fashion Week autumn/winter 2024 be remembered for? With the city in the midst of heavy construction ahead of the Olympics, it’s fair to say the French were feeling a soupçon stressé, but this was nothing that a game of celebrity front-row spotting couldn’t solve. Even Miranda Priestly, who stopped by Demna’s show to see whether the devil really does wear Balenciaga, was down for a healthy game of couture theatrics. Here, the biggest talking points from the most recent round of couture shows.
Photographed by Acielle / Style Du Monde1/8Bows abounded, but there was no literal bow for Virginie Viard
The rumour mill has been having a jolly old time of it lately, but it was wrong in its suggestion that Virginie Viard might take a final bow at Chanel before truly closing the door on the house that has been the designer’s home for almost three decades. Show notes detailed a new dawn at the brand, with the Fashion Creation Studio driving the collections forward while a new, as yet unidentified, creative director signs on the dotted line. The autumn/winter 2024 couture season subsequently played it safe by doubling down on the classics that keep business booming, while sweet entry-point accessories, such as bows, will keep the non-couture clients interested. A new venue in the Palais Garnier (the Grand Palais is being prepped for the Olympic fencing) ushered in this new in-between era, with a handful of dramatic satin opera coats to keep editors who need to fill column inches happy.
Photographed by Acielle / Style Du Monde2/8Angelina Kendall won the season
There’s nothing quite like booking the Chanel bride slot to cement your status as a supermodel in the making. Brazilian-Kiwi beauty Angelina Kendall, who was discovered on Instagram in 2021 and has already covered Vogue Italia, wore a Princess Diana-adjacent wedding gown to close out the show – no mean feat in the heat. The frothy, ’80s-esque confection festooned with bows looked aeons away from the Versace campaign you might have seen Kendall front with Gigi Hadid, but showed this fresh-faced, Aussie-based 18-year-old – who has been compared to Gisele Bündchen – is a chameleon to watch.
Enzo Poly3/8Kylie Jenner reset her Schiaparelli narrative
Eighteen months on from that wild “taxidermy” look, Kylie Jenner swapped Disney villain energy for pink princess styling on the Schiaparelli front row. Trusting Daniel Roseberry implicitly (we refer you back to that lion’s head debacle), Jenner wore a sugary adaptation of the veiled, crystal-dotted, corseted looks on the runway in Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild. It was Kardashian glamour at its finest – 100 per cent committed and most probably quite uncomfortable – and a reminder that Couture Week is the family’s natural habitat. No one does it better.
Photographed by Acielle / Style Du Monde4/8Fighting talk was heard – and seen – at Thom Browne
With the Olympics looming and Vogue World: Paris bringing supermodels on horseback to town, there was a sporty mood at play. While most of the athletic nods were more subtle – see Dior’s gladiator sandals – Thom Browne staged a tug of war on his runway. No models sustained rope burns in the making of this TikTok spectacle, but they did look decidedly chic in the muslin-inspired collection detailed with variegated gold beading, which took some 42 men over 11,000 hours to make in its own kind of endurance test.
5/8Miranda Priestly gave her two cents on Balenciaga
Nicole Kidman, Michelle Yeoh and Charli XCX had to budge up on the Balenciaga front row, as Miranda Priestly stopped by for
RunwayVogue. Clutching The Book – bound with Edward Enninful’s last cover no less – she delivered the delicious line, “Why is no one ready…?”, before popping off to the Balenciaga store to browse pantaboots. Quite possibly the highlight of Couture Week, the cameo, aced by Alexis Stone who spent three months morphing into the high priestess of fashion, was originally slated for the Met Gala, but the powers that be said no. “I’m not a lookalike and I’m not trying to replace these people,” Stone told Daniel Rodgers. “I just want to highlight what can be done with the best production.” A job well done, or as Priestly herself might say: “Truth is, there’s no one who can do what I do.”
Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Getty Images6/8J Lo aced being J Lo at Dior
The paps have made much of Jennifer Lopez’s “solo” trip to Europe, but can a woman not attend a fashion show without it being labelled as a sign of her “imminent divorce”? J Lo – all smiles and honeycomb highlights at Dior – delivered the kind of Hollywood drama that couture demands. Never would a journo or a buyer wear leather opera gloves and gold satin platform wedges on the front row, but that’s what makes the “I’m Real” singer’s presence so brilliant. Couture is a character part for her and she nails it every time.
7/8Everyone fell for the new Jean Paul Gaultier hook, eye and sinker
Nicolas di Felice closed out Couture Week with his interpretation of Jean Paul Gaultier. As Vogue Runway’s Nicole Phelps pointed out, the Courrèges designer was just a boy in Belgium when Madonna first wore Gaultier’s cone bra and changed fashion history, but the legendary rule breaker presented a world of possibility for a countryside dweller dreaming of Paris. Di Felice’s JPG autumn/winter 2024 collection showed that he is still thinking big. While other guest designers, from Simone Rocha to Chitose Abe, chose to reinterpret more obvious hallmarks of the brand – pointy bralettes, corsetry, sailor motifs – Nicolas zeroed in on the hook and eye fastening, with one chainmail-effect dress comprised of 40,000 simple closures fastened together to mesmerising effect. It had Kylie Jenner’s name all over it.
Vanni Bassetti/Getty Images8/8It was a family affair
Doppelgänger alert! The street-style circus outside Balenciaga did a collective double take when Nicole Kidman walked in with her lookalike daughter, Sunday Rose Kidman-Urban. Both clad in Demna’s form-fitting dresses and sunglasses, with their bleached blonde mops straightened to the extreme, Kidman Senior and Junior joined a handful of mother-daughter duos – including Naomi Watts and Kai Schreiber, and Maya Rudolph and Pearl Anderson – who all dispelled the rarefied reputation that couture is stuffy. It can even be *whisper it* fun.
