Paris Fashion Week: Mismatched hems and flip-flops at Chanel, geometric patterns at Louis Vuitton, friends and family at Balenciaga

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PARIS — Chanel designer Virginie Viard unveiled a breezy, warm-weather collection in Paris on a drizzly Tuesday, showcasing a colorful lineup of asymmetric styles, paraded by models in flip-flops and thick-framed glasses.

The audience, including actress Penelope Cruz, singer Usher and Blackpink singer Jennie Kim, sat in box-like rooms with large windows looking out on life-size photographs of the scrub-filled hills of the French Riviera.

The models cut through the center of the sprawling space of the Grand Palais Ephemere exhibit hall in central Paris, parading tweed skirt sets with uneven hems, patchwork ensembles and lightweight dresses that trailed down in the back.

Adding to the collection’s nonchalant air, a swimsuit was worn with a cape, relaxed jeans were dressed up with a slender, rhinestone belt and a tweed jacket, and sleeves on dresses were sliced open to cover shoulders in a cape-like fashion.

The show took place on the last day of Paris Fashion Week, which has drawn crowds of industry press and celebrities to the French capital, topping off a season of runway presentations that also took place in New York, London and Milan.

LOUIS VUITTON
Louis Vuitton womenswear designer Nicolas Ghesquiere sent out a lineup of tailored styles with a geometric touch for the LVMH-owned label’s spring runway show, which was held in a gutted-out building on the famous Champs Elysée in Paris.

Models strode down the runway in black and white checks, stripes, and wide belts slung low, wearing long skirts paired with loose bomber jackets and leggy schoolgirl looks with short, double-breasted coats.

Shimmery jumpsuits with low necklines and glossy miniskirts added extra shine, while high-waisted trousers were elevated with voluminous sleeves.

The audience, which included American actress Zendaya, Louis Vuitton’s menswear designer Pharrell Williams, and Felix from K-Pop group Stray Kids, sat in risers built in the vast, empty space, outfitted with spotlights and draped in orange plastic.

BALENCIAGA
Balenciaga designer Demna Gvasalia took a personal turn for the luxury label’s runway show in Paris, sending out a lineup of reconstructed trench coats, oversize bomber jackets and floor-sweeping floral gowns on an eclectic cast of models plucked from his entourage.

His mother opened the show, marching down a long runway set like a stage and lined with draped red velvet curtains, wearing pointy heels and a long, roomy trench coat, navy blue on one side, black on the other, tightly cinched at the waist with a cloth belt.

Mr. Gvasalia — usually known as Demna — used the show’s soundtrack to throw the focus on the construction process, featuring actress Isabelle Huppert reading instructions on how to make a tailored jacket.

“It’s a complex job and I wanted to show that appreciation and also to value it,” Demna told journalists after the show, explaining that as Ms. Huppert’s voice sped up during the show, the idea was to relay the intensity of the process, not anger.

Rethinking styles, Demna aimed to make coats that looked as if worn over the shoulders, adding extra sleeves that hung down, and fashioned a clutch bag to look like a pointy-toed shoe.

“I don’t believe in a perfect, polished, beige Angora world,” he said, noting his approach is not to make people look rich, or successful, or powerful.

Other models in the Kering owned label’s show included a fashion professor, artists, students, a public relations executive, a personal trainer and online fashion magazine The Cut’s fashion critic Cathy Horyn.

Closing the show was the designer’s husband, Loik Gomez, a music artist known as BFRND, in a wedding dress. Worn with a long, white lace veil over his head, the dress was made from seven dresses, “cut, tiered and piled together anew,” according to the show notes. — Reuters