Existential Clothes: Paris Fashion Week Wrap-Up
Days 2 & 3
On Sunday evening it suddenly came to me.
I had just left Man/Woman. The multi-brand “human-scale fashion trade show” — which it’s not, it’s huge and impersonal — took place at Pavillon Vendôme. That’s a 2,600m2 venue in the Opéra neighborhood, located right next to The Ritz, and at a 25- minute stroll from the Marais where most showrooms I visited took place. On my way back to the hotel in St Germain, I passed by the grand magasins and endless luxury boutiques, walked through some of the Louvre’s guichets, and then crossed the Pont des Arts to get to the Left Bank. Almost all of this grandeur and monumentality is due to Hausmann’s renovation of Paris in the mid-19th century, when old neighborhoods — with their narrow streets and improvised markets — where demolished. James Scott wrote about this in Seeing Like a State, presenting it as a classic case of modernization: while definitely solving some issues (in this case: overcrowding, disease, etc.), it also did away with pre-existing diverse social arrangements developed over the course of many generations.
While standing in front of the Pyramid, I again wondered: what’s the point of the other Paris Fashion Week — of the independent, niche, off-beat, underdog brands existing in the shadow of the “celeb-filled, headline-grabbing” events? Thinking of Hausmann, I began to see parallels with a Louis Vuitton runway show and a GQ/Vogue cocktail party. And I began to believe that the only important question to ask is this: What human experience does their existence require? Or, that is: How do they want us to be? Or, more pointedly: What do they want from us?
Much like a church, the official Paris Fashion Week exists to inspire awe, to impose, to create a feeling of being overwhelmed or overpowered. What’s more, and unlike a church — where individuals feel small and insignificant through the experience of something greater than themselves — high fashion’s secular religiosity makes that individuality is belittled and revered at the same time. What’s revered is individuality as a cultus. What’s belittled is individuality as the existential state of a flesh and blood human being. That ambiguity also informs its hierarchical nature: individuality is exclusive to those able to transcend their existence as just one of 8 billion human individuals.
We all know this. And I didn’t even feel particularly grim when thinking about it. The point of the question was to draw out something uplifting about the other Paris Fashion Week. That something is this: Improvised Value Creation. None of the brands I visited have anything to do with awe-inspiring churches or Hausmannian boulevards. They’re more like a personal shrine — a chestnut found on a morning walk — or a cow path — a short-cut in your local park en route to the library.
Their existence invites you to find out within yourself whether or not you’re drawn to them. And, somewhat later, to reflect on what it was that made that happen. Sometimes it’s just one piece, or a detail even — a buttonhole, an embroidery, a hanging loop. At other times it’s an entire collection, or the development that lead from one collection to another.
Everything that draws you to a designer has to do with values. I don’t mean universal values — sustainability, ethics, fair-wage or what have you. I’m thinking of personal, actionable values: the partly intuitive, partly subconscious, partly emotional, partly trial-and-error inner workings that make you take action, that make you decide to pick up an item from a hanger, to (maybe, who knows) try it on, to feel convinced that it fits you nicely, to become interested in a brand, to talk about it with others, to allow it to become part of your world. Perhaps at some point you’ll appreciate a designer more because they take sustainability seriously. Perhaps at some other point you’ll lose your interest in them — because other designers, with other values, have come on your radar, or because your values have developed in a new direction, be it through books, music, photographs, relationships, births, deaths, or some epiphany, that is, through life as such.
There’s no set-up plan for this process of Improvised Value Creation. There are conditions that need to be in place for it to unfold. That’s what the other Paris Fashion Week provides. No, that’s what this growing movement of brands — the Evan Kinoris, Man-tles, Gabriela Coll Garments and Oliver Churches of this world — are providing, each in their own particular way. (I’ve seen enough lazy logo-slapped hoodies the past few days to realize it makes no sense to generalize the other Paris Fashion Week.) Some do it through oversized, body-liberating silhouettes. Some through mouth-watering, mind-boggling fabrics. Some through deliberate imperfections, mistakes and errors. Some through a monk-like dedication to handwork. Some through a radical commitment to non-growth.
Whatever it is, the experience is the same. You don’t have to identify with something you’re not. You don’t have to identify with anything, really. You don’t have to force yourself to become someone you aren't. You don’t have pretend that you “get” it. You don’t have to want to possess it in order to appreciate it. The experience is that of an invitation to experiment with life through clothing. Find out what matters to you, revisit it as you go along, do this from personal honesty — being radically honest to yourself — and act upon it come what may. That may sound soft. But it’s actually pretty hard. Give it a try.
And, of course, clothing is just clothing. Let’s not make too much of it. But air is also just air. And self-love is also just self-love. When it comes to the things that matter to us, it’s best to be as non-hierarchical as possible — and make every single thing matter as much as possible.
So, how does the other Paris Fashion Week want you to be? What does it want from you? At its best, it doesn’t want you to be anything, and it doesn’t want much from you. At its best, the human experience it makes possible ranges from modesty and humbleness to commitment and zeal, from authenticity and self-worth to captivation and joy as well as gratitude and esteem. And all these in different variations and combinations: feeling great excitement about something unimposing, finding delight in dedication, realizing a genuine sense of self through a piece of craftsmanship.
Yes, however strange at times, Paris Fashion Week was a good experience. If anything, it made me aware once again — I apparently need frequent reminding — that outside the spotlights there are clothes full of redeeming feeling, free of the dominating, homogenizing powers to which their material existence forms a small, immaterial protest.
Itineraries
Day 2
9:15am Coffee with Louis Cheslaw at Dreamin’ Man
10:30am 45R store at 23 Rue Vieille du Temple
12:00pm Works & Days at the Good Place showroom — chatted with Raff Godfrey about his new collection
1:30pm Cottle showroom — interview with founder and designer Toshiaki Watanabe
3:00pm Awaykin showroom — saw the Camiel Fortgens team, met Wanze Song from Wanze, somehow missed Gottlob, browsed the new Cawley pieces
6:00pm Gottlob x Psyche Organic Get-Together at Causeries, in collaboration with Impossible Object, Awaykin and THIRTYEIGHT studio — friendly chat with Moritz Gottlob-Schönenberg
Day 3
11:00am Oliver Church studio visit and interview (more soon!)
1:00pm Didn’t make it in time to Aviva Jifei Xue…
2:00pm Tokyo Fashion Award showroom — hoped to meet Kota Gushiken, who wasn’t there, but did browse his new knitwear collection
3:00pm Coffee to-go with Saager Dilawri, founder and owner of Neighbour
4:30pm Man/Woman showroom — met the people from Innat (whose designer, Ryona Tani, previously worked at Comme des Garcons) and Bru na Boinne, chatted with Clément and Germain Douillet from Maison Douillet
Highlights
Cottle
Founded in 2015 by Toshiaki Watanabe, Cottle showed its seasonless pieces in a beautiful space just across the street from Marcos Hjorn (whose handcrafted, made-to-measure shoes will soon be making headlines). With the help of a very kind translator, Toshiaki and I had a long, in-depth conversation about the aesthetics of his brand, the significance of it being located in the Okayama Prefecture, the different designs and techniques used for its three series (Uniform for Living, Leaf Vein, and Earth Wall), and the changing cultural exchange between Japan and the United States. I tried on some pieces, including my personal favorite: the ‘Leaf Vein Tailor Made Shirt / Fermentation’. Inspired by the vascular bundles in leaves, it’s made from a mix of pure silk, hemp and organic cotton, and gets its characteristic colouring from light and fermentation processes which cause the dye to permeate into the fibers. An interview with Cottle will be published early spring.
Camiel Fortgens
At Paris Fashion Week you realize just how hard and rare it is for a brand to create collections that are both solid and diverse and to do so consistently each and every season. Camiel Fortgens is one of those brands able to pull that off. And this with such a force that you’re beginning to see its signature features appear at other brands too. AW25 may be its most mature collection to date. You clearly sense that the team truly “owns” what they’re doing. This mostly from the apparent ease with which they’re able to improve their core styles and experiment with new designs, fabrics and colors that still result in instantly recognizable Camiel Fortgens pieces.
There’s no doubt that purple is going to be the hit of 2025-26. For their new collection, Camiel Fortgens is using different gradients of it for at least two shirts, a vest, a jacket, and a cardigan. Among my favorites were the ‘Outdoor Hunting Jacket - Brown’ (a funny name, now that I think of it — what would an ‘Inside Hunting Jacket’ look like?) and the ‘Frankenstein Cable Knit - Navy’. They also did a shoe in collaboration with Stepney Workers Club. It was okay, but I feel that a real Camiel Fortgens shoe is yet forthcoming. Rather than a shoe, why not do a Wellington boot? CF x Dubarry is something I’d be keen to see.
Oliver Church
Pure commitment. That’s what Oliver Church’s singular garments are about. From his 16m2 workshop, Church creates handmade, hand finished jackets, shirts (and, scoop, knitwear) from antique fabrics. 150 pieces a year. Nothing more, nothing less. Try to find them, and you’ll also find some of the world’s best stores. Oliver and I had a 2-hour conversation, which I didn’t record, so the forthcoming interview will be a re-imagination of what happened then and there. Or perhaps, if it doesn’t work out, what was said will forever stay there.
Kota Gushiken
90% of what Kota Gushiken does I’ll likely never wear. But still. I can imagine it, I can dream of it, and isn’t that another legitimate way of approaching clothes? Kota was born and grew up in Yokohama, Japan, and graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA Fashion Design - Knitwear in 2016. His pieces introduce humor into the otherwise pretty serious world of knitwear — sometimes rather boldly, through out-there designs, at other times much more subtly. One of the highlights was a collaboration he did with Jamieson’s of Shetland, who at first couldn’t believe the assignment Kota sent over was serious. Apparently, you occasionally need to be dead serious in order to be humorous.
Next time
Finally, a short list of brands I’m disappointed to have missed — and look forward to getting to know better:
- Carter Young, the New Americana hit rapidly rising to NYT-fame
- Salon C. Lundman, the name-sake label of Christoffer Lundman, who’s held top positions at Acne Studios, Tom Ford and Tekla
- Sono, a young London-based label started by ex-Lemaire and ex-The Row people
- Rier, leading menswear’s Tyrolean moment with sleek, vertical designs in boiled wool and natural fleece-pile
- Edna, if colors are indeed about to explode, so will this brand
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