Valentino Holds Black Tie Paris Show, Lanvin Goes Simple

Models wear creations as part of the Lanvin Fall/Winter 2023-2024 ready-to-wear collection presented Sunday, March 5, 2023 in Paris. (AP)
Models wear creations as part of the Lanvin Fall/Winter 2023-2024 ready-to-wear collection presented Sunday, March 5, 2023 in Paris. (AP)
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Valentino Holds Black Tie Paris Show, Lanvin Goes Simple

Models wear creations as part of the Lanvin Fall/Winter 2023-2024 ready-to-wear collection presented Sunday, March 5, 2023 in Paris. (AP)
Models wear creations as part of the Lanvin Fall/Winter 2023-2024 ready-to-wear collection presented Sunday, March 5, 2023 in Paris. (AP)

Cars snaked for blocks dropping off countless VIPs for Valentino’s “black tie” show at Paris Fashion Week as the evening Paris lights bathed the nearby Arc de Triomphe. Its designer Pierpaolo Piccioli put on a star-studded collection that deconstructed the suit amid androgyny and sartorial plays.

Meanwhile at Lanvin, stars such as Avril Lavigne sat beneath the Gothic-style arches to view the oldest couture house’s latest designs, which subtly evoked history.

Here are some highlights of Sunday’s ready-to-wear displays.

Valentino’s black tie

Brooklyn Beckham and Nicole Peltz soaked up photographers’ flashes inside the ornate Hotel Salomon de Rothschild in the moment of calm before the storm. Then as 8pm approached, hordes of fashion insiders wrestled for their places at one of the Paris season’s hotly anticipated shows.

This fall, Piccioli captured the gender fluid zeitgeist with a display that dissected the suit – with black ties, flashes of punk and gold earrings.

Sheer black blouses sported big white polka dots. A white shirt and black tie became an all-enveloping floor sweeping gown. Myriad plumes poked out deftly from a statement black and white striped feather coat.

Thin black ties – the theme of the show -- were abundant, as were takes on the white shirt, which at times caught echoes of Celine’s Hedi Slimane.

Yet the monochromatic musing was handled with subtlety, and balanced with bursts of on-trend eye-popping color – such as a long wool citrine coat or an emerald green leather poncho-jacket.

The art of the invitation

The age of email and rising environmental awareness doesn’t seem to have left much of a mark on the fashion industry’s antiquated system of invitations. Season after season, gasoline-guzzling couriers crisscross Paris to personally deliver ever-elaborate, often handmade, invites – sometimes even for shows touting ecological awareness!

Top houses vie for the wackiest or most imaginative idea that often bears a clue as to the theme of the runway collection.

Balenciaga’s invite was a toile blazer set against a plain background that fashion insiders interpreted as signaling a fresh start for the embattled designer Demna Gvasalia. Balenciaga apologized last year after harsh industry-wide criticism of its ads featuring child abuse papers and bondage bears.

Gvasalia has told media that he was now going back to his roots of making jackets as that is where he began as a designer, acknowledging with humility that fashion was not about “buzz.”

Givenchy sent out a giant patent black croc purse containing the details of the show that moved in a glamorous direction.

While, was Chloe’s invitation box of Alain Ducasse designer cacao chocolates aimed at sweetening guests after a spate of middling reviews?

Lanvin is simple

References to the 1940s, 1980s, the 18th century, the medieval and the Renaissance mingled together inside the historic arches of Paris’ thirteenth century College of Bernardins. Yet despite these myriad styles, this fall-winter collection remained a pared down affair -- simply chic, and intentionally lacking in adornments and embellishments.

There were some nice touches. Stud-like polka-dots adorning shirts, slit skirt-suits and coats provided a lift. Elsewhere, a pink 1940s coat with sloping shoulders became a statement piece in textured pink. A black satine gown featured a diagonal dynamic cleverly matching the angle of the stone arches in the decor behind.

The show’s simplicity belied the inner passion of Lanvin’s designer Bruno Sialelli. The house quoted the Swedish-American Sculptor Claes Oldenburg, who died last year, as saying: “Making things. What fun! And things being made, Go away!”

Alexander McQueen’s orchid

Designer Sarah Burton said she was drawn to the orchid, the leitmotif of her gothic-tinged fall collection for Alexander McQueen, because of its strange beauty and adaptability.

“It thrives in the air, resists being rooted and grows in the wild,” she said. “The orchid mimics both predator and prey.”

The anatomy of the orchid – and of human flesh – was this dissected in this original display that turned the beauty of the one of the world’s most common flowers into something almost threatening, sinister and provocative.

The inside orchid featured as a blown up white image on the skirt of a black billowing Asiatic look. Taken from above, the flower’s lips and column resembled a fierce creature, mouth open, ready to feed.

A sublime sheath in torch red had Giger-like tendrils creeping round the bust and hips evoking the myriad orchid roots.

Front row stars Eddie Redmayne and Elle Fanning admired and applauded.



Sweden Drowns in Discarded Fast Fashion Items

A worker sorts incoming clothing items at Artikel2 sorting center in Stockholm on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
A worker sorts incoming clothing items at Artikel2 sorting center in Stockholm on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
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Sweden Drowns in Discarded Fast Fashion Items

A worker sorts incoming clothing items at Artikel2 sorting center in Stockholm on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
A worker sorts incoming clothing items at Artikel2 sorting center in Stockholm on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)

Sweden's recycling centers are overflowing with clothes after an EU-wide ban this year on throwing away textiles, leaving overwhelmed municipalities eager to have fast fashion giants take responsibility.

"It's a huge amount coming in everyday. It's been crazy, it's a huge increase," said Brian Kelly, secretary general of the Artikel2 charity shop in Stockholm, where rows of bins were overfilled with discarded apparel.

Since the beginning of this year, EU countries must have separate textile recycling, alongside existing processes for glass, paper and food waste.

The aim is to promote circular waste management, where textiles are sorted and reused, or recycled if they are not too damaged.

"We have seen a 60-percent increase in textiles collected in January and February this year compared with the same period last year," said Karin Sundin, an expert on textile waste at Stockholm city's waste and recycling management company Stockholm Vatten och Avfall.

Once the textiles are sorted, some 60 to 70 percent is designated for reuse, and 20 to 30 percent for recycling as padding, isolation or composite materials.

Around seven to 10 percent is burned for energy, according to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

That is a huge improvement from before the new law, according to experts, who note that discarded clothing used to be systematically incinerated.

However, a lack of infrastructure in Sweden means used clothes are largely exported abroad, primarily to Lithuania, where they are sorted, reused, or burned for energy.

"We don't have the big sorting plants that can put everything into value in the same way that they have in eastern Europe for example," explained Sundin.

"The reason is that it's so labor intensive (and) costs a lot of money," she said as she gave AFP a tour of the Ostberga recycling center in southern Stockholm.

Swedes throw away 90,000 tons of textiles per year, or 10 kilograms (22 pounds) per person, according to the Swedish Society for the Conservation of Nature.

The EU average is 19 kilograms, according to 2022 statistics, up from 17 in 2019, data from the European Environment Agency showed.

The clothing industry also pollutes the environment.

To make a t-shirt that weighs 135 grammes (4.76 ounces), 2,500 liters (660 gallons) of water and one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of chemicals are needed, noted Yvonne Augustsson, advisor at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

"That means greenhouse gas emissions of around two to five kilos," she said.

"In Sweden, an article of clothing is used on average 30 times. If you double this to 60 times -- which seems reasonable -- you reduce the climate impact by half," she said.

Textile sorting in Sweden is handled by municipalities, many of which have been overburdened by the quantities received since the introduction of the new law.

In the sparsely populated north, some towns, such as Kiruna, continue to incinerate textiles because they have no takers for the items.

Fast fashion giants, such as H&M and Zara, are expected to eventually play a role in handling the waste they help generate, and negotiations are ongoing at the European level to determine their responsibility.

According to a preliminary agreement EU member states reached in February, clothing giants will be responsible for the end of lifetime of the products they sell, required to pay for collection, sorting, reuse and recycling.

The idea is to encourage fast fashion retailers to produce "clothing designed to last longer," said Augustsson.

Swedish brand H&M told AFP it welcomed moves in that direction.

Consumers also need to change their mindset.

Each person should "buy no more than five new articles of clothing per year," said Beatrice Rindevall, head of the Swedish Society for the Conservation of Nature, which regularly organizes clothing swaps.

In the town of Linkoping on a sunny spring day, a clothing exchange on a student campus had racks featuring everything from a hot pink jacket with feathered sleeves to faded jeans, bags and striped t-shirts.

"People can give us clothes in good condition that they don't wear anymore (and) exchange them for something else," volunteer Eva Vollmer said.

"We focus on creating the solution so that people actually have an alternative."