Paris promises an intense Fashion Week featuring Marni, Peter Do and the return of Carven

New names, prestigious returns, major debuts: Paris Women’s Fashion Week, from September 25 to October 3, promises a mouth-watering line-up of 108 labels, 68 shows and 41 presentations. This is in line with last season’s programme, which brought together 106 houses and 66 shows. Nine new brands are joining the schedule this year, including Peter Do on Tuesday and Marni on Wednesday, while eight brands will be missing, including Off-White.

For Spring/Summer 2024 Paris Fashion Week has returned to a packed programme with a host of events, like the retrospective devoted to Azzedine Alaïa at the Palais Galliera, and more than fifteen parallel shows, including the mega-shows on September 28 by Messika Haute Joaillerie and Louboutin, the Loubi Show, as well as L’Oréal on October 1, at the Eiffel Tower. And let’s not forget Lacoste’s big 90th birthday party on October 28, and the many other festivities that will punctuate this end-of-September Parisian fashion extravaganza.
 
New to the Fashion Week line-up for the first time is Vietnamese-born American designer Peter Do, a rising star on the New York catwalk, and Italian fashion house Marni, part of the OTB group, which left Milan a year ago to embark on a programme of travelling shows from New York to Tokyo. Both have replaced Dundas and Palm Angels, who, after making their debut in the French capital last February, are not on the calendar this season.

All the big names will be present, from Christian Dior and Saint Laurent on September 26, to Courrèges and Balmain, which is showing despite the theft of part of its collection, on September 27. Rabanne and Givenchy on September 28, Issey Miyake on September 29, Hermès on September 30, Balenciaga and Valentino on October 1, Louis Vuitton on October 2 and Chanel on October 3. Other highlights include Gabriela Hearst’s final show for Chloé on September 28, and Sarah Burton’s final show for Alexander McQueen on September 30.
 
Also on Saturday 30, are the other eagerly-awaited shows that will celebrate the debuts of designers Stefano Gallici at Ann Demeulemeester, who replaced Ludovic de Saint Sernin at short notice when he left after just one season, and Louise Trotter at Carven. The historic brand, bought by the Chinese group Icicle in 2018, is making a comeback after being absent from the Paris catwalks since September 2017, bringing in a creative director for the first time since then.

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Mugler is returning to the ready-to-wear calendar, after a stint in Haute Couture in January. As is Maison Margiela. For its part, the London-based brand of Bulgarian-born designer Kiko Kostadinov, which has moved to Paris over the past few seasons, is making its debut on October 3 in the official women’s calendar, after having made its debut in the men’s programme in June 2022. Last but not least, Casablanca has moved from the men’s to the women’s ready-to-wear programme and will be showing on Sunday, October 1.

New names and departures

 
Among the new names to be discovered is Marie Adam Leenaerdt, who will be opening the week on Monday, September 25 with Weisanto and Vaquera. The Belgian designer, who graduated from the Ecole de La Cambre in 2020, works on cuts and constructions that favour essential fashion. Another designer to look out for is Duran Lantink, who won the Andam Special Prize in June. He will be closing Paris Fashion Week on October 3. Specialising in upcycled, gender-neutral fashion, the designer from the Netherlands divides his time between Amsterdam and Paris, where he presented his latest ready-to-wear collection in March.
 
The programme of presentations welcomes four new brands: New York-based Chinese designer Caroline HÚ, Australian Christopher Esber, Barcelona-based Paloma Lanna’s Paloma Wool label and Italian Veronica Leoni with her Quira brand. After an absence, Aigle and Kimhékim are back on the presentation agenda, and designer Dryce Lahssan will be unveiling his first collection for cashmere label Pellat-Finet just outside of Fashion Week.
 
As well as Dundas and Palm Angels, this season’s no-shows include A.W.A.K.E. Mode, which is organising a presentation, and Shang Xia, Off-White, which will be showing later in the season. Similarly, the IFM fashion show is taking a back seat this autumn, while Lanvin, which has parted with its creative director Bruno Sialelli, is leaving the catwalks to embark on a new creative approach based on collaborations, with rapper Future as its first guest. Ester Manas, another winner of the Andam 2023 Special Prize, has decided to take a break “to reflect and lay the foundations for the next steps.”