To kick off this year’s fashion week, New York took centre stage, featuring Tommy Hilfiger's comeback show celebrating the essence of the city. Alongside, Khaite, Altuzarra, and Helmut Lang who wowed the crowd with their star-studded front rows. You can read more about the highlights of the NYFW 2024 in the BB blog - https://beatricebayliss.com/blogs/news/doesn-t-the-knitwear-of-aknvas-at-nyfw-remind-you-of-bb.
London showcased the best of Simone Rocha, Molly Goddard, and Burberry, while Milan boasted big productions from Tom Ford, Gucci, and Versace. Now, attention shifts to Paris, where debuts from Sean McGirr at Alexander McQueen and Chemena Kamali at Chloé are anticipated, alongside the return of Off-White and a special 10-year celebration for Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton.
As the fashion industry is significantly helping the UK economy by an estimated value of £28.9 billion annually, we decided to begin with the London Fashion Week, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this month (Forbes, 2024) London’s fashion week took place between the 16th and 20th of February and showed many brilliant pieces as the Balmain cocktail dresses and their whole runaway. Designed by Olivier Rousteing and based on the memories of his hometown in Bordeaux, France.
The new collection from Sabirah, by Deborah Latouche, inspired by the 1980s’ TV show Dynasty, showed some great vintage glamor. Filled with everything you can imagine for the 80’s powerful, independent woman, the collection had antique jewels, feathers, and with the sustainability always in mind, the clothes were made in London.
For those who watched the show, you probably noticed the huge apple in the background of Cecilie Bahnsen’s run. The green apple specifically was "Embracing a darker side of romance and interpreting a wider range of emotions, while remaining true to an unapologetic connection to femininity and craft." (Bazaar, 2024) The name of the AW24 was ‘The Bite’, and it represents desire, strength, and love, shown through the designs. Names like Saint Laurent, Dior, Tom Ford, Gucci, and Dolce & Gabbana seemed to have a focus on the see through materials and fluid fabrics this year. Many model’s that show the natural beauty of the model’s skin and celebrate the freedom in expression. Others like Giorgio Armani and Bottega Veneta were leaning more on the harmonious elegance through the blazers, dresses, and suit pieces.
Similarly, the Milan Fashion Week presented with well crafted clothes that were styled with nicely matching accessories. The front rows were packed with celebrities such as Tyga, Emma Watson, Gwendoline Christie, Emma Chamberlain, Jaden Smith, Letita Wright, and many more. Anne Hathaway, dressed in Versace showed the beautiful red dress and, in a few images, online, she demonstrated how close she is with Donatella Versace. They worked together at the 2023 Met Gala and Anne was one of the invited for the for the Icons dinner at the New York City’s Rockefeller Centre, earlier this year. An evening full of inspiration and discussions of their contributions with many musicians, art curators, fashion artists, and ambassadors of social change. (Bazaar; Vouge, 2024)
As every year, the fashion show in Milan, Italy, showed famous brands as Giorgio Armani, Tom Ford, Gucci, Bottega, Versace, Disel, Prada, and more. In the beautiful city, there are so many venues to visit including Quadrilatero della Moda, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, and Palazzo Morando. Overall there were 74 scheduled events from which 37 presentations, 22 physical and 5 digital shows.
As the reputation of the city as a fashion centre, many of the new generation designers and stylist were able to present their pieces. Some of this year’s debuts were by Domenico Orefice, Institution by Galib Gassanoff, LaTorre, Mordecai by Ludovico Bruno, Noskra, Rubeus Milano, and Stuart Weitzman. Many images from the catwalk can be found on the Milan Fashion Week Instagram page - https://www.instagram.com/milanfashionweek/
So far in Paris, we saw brands as Off-White, Balmain, Givenchy, Casablanca, Undercover, Litkovska, Saint Laurent, Mossi, Christian Dior, and Pressiat. All showing excellent craftsmanship and their love towards black and leather (and sometimes combined). The fashion shows will run from 26th of February until the 5th of March, so stay tuned for the new trends from the city of love.
By Kristin Aleksandrova