Haute Couture Fashion Week: Tech and sustainability get a luxurious makeover

In many methods, Haute Couture Fashion Week in Paris looks like a bubble complete of embroidery, feathers, and acres of tulle ruffles, a show off of outstanding hand-crafted designs that would promote properly north of $100,000.
However, on the Autumn-Winter 2019 shows, even though the focal point remained very a whole lot on imparting escapism through the notable fabric and elaborate craftsmanship, some couturiers also furnished touches of realism. At a time while customers are increasingly more conscious of the impact the style enterprise has on the environment, many couturiers are eager to highlight how craftsmanship can increase upcycling to new heights.
Sustainable Futures

Over the past several months, luxurious ready-to-put on labels and excessive road manufacturers alike have announced modifications to their business practices in the name of sustainability. And now evidently, the rush for durability has seeped into the arena of haute couture.
Dutch dressmaker Ronald van der Kemp, who has long been a champion for sustainable fashion, stated that 98% of his new series changed into made the usage of repurposed fabrics and substances, inclusive of overstock from past collections and factory waste.

He additionally made an assertion against faux fur, that is normally crafted from petroleum-based substances, using imparting a “fur” coat and a leopard-print stole crafted from silk tubes stuffed with recycled down. (Elsewhere, Jean Paul Gaultier provided an also smart opportunity to fake fur, supplying coats with trompe l’oeil prints of animal pelts.)

“Couture, in its heyday set the tone in fashion. With my sustainable couture I need to inspire ladies out there to experiment with their wardrobes and with antique garments; to train them to enhance their personalities and be acutely aware of shopping for garments,” van der Kemp said.
“I additionally need to show the sector that it is viable to make couture with current materials, lifeless stock, excessive-cease leftovers, vintage fabric, and that sustainability may be glamorous, sexy and high-style.”

Driving home that message, Viktor & Rolf created colorful patchwork dresses from vintage clothes. They also collaborated with Dutch artist and textile fashion designer Claudy Jongstra on a sequence of coats crafted from the wool of Drenthe Heath sheep she increases and shears herself. The designers told WWD they aimed “to forged a wonderful spell that asserts things may be done.”

Meanwhile, at the fringe of couture, Philipp Schueller and Rens de Waal, the Dutch duo at the back of the label Schueller de Waal, staged an eco-minded opportunity to the conventional fashion display. Instead of renting a venue, they’d models, wearing upcycled clothes, choose up litter in the front of the city corridor in the fifteenth arrondissement as part of a “cleaning action” prepared in partnership with two neighborhood NGOs.
New beginnings
Chanel is always one of the most up to date tickets in town, and this season become no longer extraordinary. The industry was eagerly waiting to see the house’s first couture collection beneath newly crowned innovative director Virginie Viard, who took price following the death of Karl Lagerfeld in February.

Chanel’s shows, staged at the Grand Palais, have always been related to the grandest of grand sets — a space shuttle, a duplicate of the Eiffel tower, a Mediterranean villa complete with palm timber and massive pool — so this season’s two-tale round library regarded a touch tame through assessment. However, it turned into a becoming tribute to Lagerfeld’s and founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel’s irrepressible love of books.

With this display, the longtime collaborator of the awesome clothier confirmed the Maison became inaccurate hands, sending out a cultured series with her vision of the Chanel attraction: Slender and elongated silhouettes on foot palms deep into pockets and carrying relaxed residences, despite a nighttime gown.
“I dreamt approximately a female with nonchalant elegance and fluid and lose silhouette; everything I like about the Chanel attraction,” Viard stated in a press release.