Paris Day Five: It’s a Process

PARIS — In the age of stuff, the process is sometimes more interesting than the product.

“To go forward, you have to go back to the beginning. To me, that’s about the atelier. It’s the heart and soul of Givenchy,” said Sarah Burton after her debut at the house’s Avenue George V headquarters.

Each seat was a stack of brown paper parcels: a reference to a cache of calico patterns from Hubert de Givenchy’s 1952 debut that was recently found in a cupboard at his first office at 8 Avenue Alfred de Vigny. For Burton, the discovery triggered a connection to her own way of working. “It’s my natural instinct to go back to pattern-cutting, to craftsmanship, to cut, shape and proportion,” she said.

The show opened with a mesh bodysuit that helped wipe the slate, and proceeded in a range of directions, from mannish tailoring to grand gowns to beautiful hourglass pieces. “I’m interested in a variety of feminine personalities,” offered Burton. It was a lot: despite the high level of polish, the show could have had a stronger sense of direction. No matter, a debut is always a work-in-progess.

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Austrian artist Erwin Wurm’s “One-Minute Sculptures” were the inspiration behind today’s sensational Issey Miyake show, where creative director Satoshi Kondo proved once again to be a fashion force sui generis. Wurm himself was in attendance, as a group of performers activated his sculptures as an introduction to the collection, which ranged from the abstract to the concrete.

Indefiniteness and multiple ways to wear a garment are part of the Miyake ethos — a humanist credo in which the wearer holds the power, and clothing frees gestures instead of the opposite. Kondo has taken this aspect of the brand to new heights. The pieces he creates are highly processual, and this latest collection marked a new level of achievement: it was complex and playful, stark and approachable, solemn and silly (if also a tad Loewe-esque at times) and came with the wonderful reminder that clothes invite active dialogue, knowing that wearing pieces the wrong way is often the best way.

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Knots were this season’s variation on deconstructed black at Yohji Yamamoto. That, and the clerical shade of purple that closed the show, either mixed with black, or alone. For the rest, it was classic Yamamoto, and very enjoyable as a result. Well past the age of 80, Yohji-san shows not an ounce of creative fatigue. One can clearly sense how much he challenges himself every season. His latest outing came with a slightly barbarian undercurrent, with a sartorial savageness that brought to mind the early 80s when Yohji and Rei took over Paris. More than forty years on, that take on dressing still looks relevant, which is a testament to the inner classicism of a truly radical language.

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At Kenzo, a longtime work-in-progress where Joshua Bullen has been drafted in as design director alongside creative lead Nigo, the sense of joy and fun at the heart of the brand were back in a house-party style mixture of mannish tailoring, lingerie and bunnies that gave a new meaning to the term debauchery.

Meanwhile, Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj, aka Matières Fécales, chose a grand salon for their catwalk debut, in glaring contrast to their gothic vision but attuned to the collection’s hourglass glamour. The designers owe a debt to Rick Owens, but their poise and polish were promising.

Almost twenty years later, Victoria Beckham remains a process. She knows how to deliver a slinky draped dress and wonderfully cut trousers, but the avant-garde pretense of many of the looks she showed tonight felt out of place, so much so as to leave one puzzled about her brand’s identity.