Gigantic artworks took center stage on Dior's menswear runway during Paris Fashion Week.
On Loewe’s runway, instead, the art pieces were smaller and sparsely scattered. Besides, they didn't belong to just one artist, giving the impression that the indoor arena of the Garde Républicaine's Célestins barracks had been turned into a minimalist and slightly pretentious gallery space.
Among the artworks were Paul Thek's 1975 bronze micro mice from his "Personal Effects of the Pied Piper Series," a 1966 copy of Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation," and pieces by two famous architects and designers: the iconic high-backed Argyle chair by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Easel by Carlo Scarpa.
Also on display was the 1981 black-and-white photo of a high-heeled shoe by Peter Huja.
This piece served as the image for the show invitation and as inspiration for the collection by Loewe's Creative Director Jonathan Anderson.
The show opened with several slim black suits and evolved into ample and sculptural pants with a jacron label on the front that secured the draped fabric. A biker jacket was turned into a cropped cape or reinvented with a scooped neckline, and jackets had extra loose sleeves that sagged when hands were in the pockets.
Models often wore headbands with long pheasant feathers that obscured their faces, symbolizing perhaps an invitation to look beyond appearances and seek the truth ourselves.
There were also plenty of optical illusions (also present, as you may remember, in Prada's S/S 25 menswear collection - is this a trend for the next season?). For example, a blue and a white top that looked like cable knits from a distance were actually made with a synthetic shiny finish.
Double-faced coats and jackets featured hidden wires, making their hems appear frozen in mid-air as if caught in a potent wind.
What looked like ballooning knitted skirts were actually wide-leg woven silk mohair trousers, and cropped shirts and pants were interconnected by a belt that looped around the hips, fusing the two designs into one (are belts a thing for next season too considering Prada's trompe l'oeil ones?) and the elongated neckline in a blue shirt extended below the waistline of the pants.
There were moments of surrealism, typical of Jonathan Anderson's work, in the golden and silver vests made from flexible metal links, in the mother-of-pearl tops with rich nacre and pseudo-nacre iridescences, and in the house labels magnified and turned into shirts.
The themes of questioning appearances and the faux vs real dichotomy were also prominent on Prada's S/S 25 menswear runway, hinting at a recurring motif for the next season.
However, here there was also a deeper, more subtle message in the coats with hems swept by the wind that brought to mind Paul Valéry's poem "The Graveyard by the Sea," and in particular the line, "The wind is rising... We must try to live!"
The billowing hems seemed indeed to echo the poem’s reflection on the transience of life and the urgency of embracing it fully, adding a poetic layer to the collection's exploration of reality and illusion.
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