Fashion Week is a global-scale event. Spanning from New York to London and Milan to Paris, fashion houses from around the world put their best out on the runway for the upcoming season.
Milan Fashion Week ran from Sept. 17-24, and the start of Paris Fashion Week overlapped with the end of Milan by a day, beginning on Sept. 23 and running through Oct. 1.
As expected, Milan Fashion Week saw collections from many Italian-founded fashion houses, like Bottega Veneta and Versace, while Paris Fashion Week shows off French-founded maisons (a word of French origin often used for “house;” in this context, replacing “fashion house”), like Schiaparelli, Saint Laurent, Dior, and more.
MILAN Highlights
Fashion is all about keeping up with the trends and predicting the next ones. In Milan, fashion happens off the runway just as much as on and is focused on the celebrity guests and ambassadors who are attending the shows.
Bottega Veneta
Jacob Elordi for Bottega Veneta
In May of this year, the Euphoria actor was announced as a new ambassador for Bottega Veneta, and Milan Fashion Week was his first time attending a show with the fashion house (Front row!). Bottega Veneta gifted Elordi a customized bright red bag that he sported at the show.
Imane Khelif for Bottega Veneta
The Olympic gold medalist made her debut fashion appearance in Milan at the Bottega Veneta show. Bottega Veneta hosted a masterclass on how to take a victory lap right here!
The controversy Khelif was thrown into during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games left her facing harassment from thousands of people online. She came out on the other side of it winning gold and had all eyes on her again, seated front-and-center in a striking yellow shirt from Bottega’s previous season’s collection.
Incredible styling choice from Bottega and an incredible first event in the fashion world for Khelif!
Bottega Bean Bags!?
Bottega’s runway collection in Milan featured many stunning pieces with lots of trench shapes and bright colors, including my personal favorite piece: a green woven bag with flower details. They really paid a lot of mind to what was going on in the audience. There was almost a sort of game going on with what the guests were sitting on. Instead of benches or regular seats, the guests attending the Bottega show lounged on leather animal-shaped bean bag couches…
Quirky, right?
Matthieu Blazy, creative director of Bottega Veneta, says he was inspired by Noah’s Ark but with a whimsical and childlike spin on it. Don’t get too excited if you like the sound of these fun animal friends, though; these off-the-runway, non-wearable pieces are going for up to $10K pre-order on Bottega’s site.
And just in case you were wondering, Jacob Elordi and Imane Khelif both got assigned to bunny bean bags! Other celebs attending the show like A$AP Rocky and Julianne Moore were assigned to a chicken and bear respectively.
Moving out of the audience and back onto the runway…
Versace
The 70s Are In
After a very pink and modern collaboration with Dua Lipa in the 2023 season for the La Vacanza collection, Versace turned back the clock with a 1970s-inspired collection at this year’s Milan Fashion Week.
Lots of purple and yellow groovy prints, flowy flowery patterns, and 70s-esque silhouettes.
Wrapping things up in Milan and catching a quick flight over to Paris…
PARIS Highlights
While we already saw lots of familiar celebrity faces watching the runway from the audience in Milan, there were also plenty of celebrity models flocking to the fashion capital of the world, Paris, to walk the runway.
Schiaparelli
Kendall Jenner for Schiaparelli
Celebrity model Kendall Jenner returned to the runway for the Schiaparelli Ready-to-Wear show, her second time walking for the maison. She previously closed their spring-summer 2024 show.
Fun Fact: Does the name Schiaparelli sound Italian or French to you? If you said Italian, you’d be right. So then why is the Schiaparelli collection shown at Paris Fashion Week instead of Milan Fashion Week? While Elsa Schiaparelli was born in Italy, she moved and founded Schiaparelli in France!
Saint Laurent
Bella Hadid for Saint Laurent
The very face of celebrity models, Bella Hadid, returned to the runway after a two-year hiatus this Paris Fashion Week to walk for Saint Laurent.
The Saint Laurent Womenswear collection told a two-part story: oversized baggy suits contrasted with patterned blazers and layered skirts. Hadid looked chic as ever in a pair of yellow sunglasses to go along with her suit.
Music and Fashion
Saint Laurent ambassador, Rosé from the band BLACKPINK, attended the show in Paris. Rosé has been working as an ambassador for YSL since 2020 and is no Fashion Week novice. Before the show started, when asked what the most Saint Laurent thing about her was, she answered, “My attitude.”
Dior
Ambassador Round-up
Rosé’s bandmate and Dior brand ambassador, Jisoo, attended the show for Dior’s Ready-to-Wear collection alongside fellow ambassador Anya Taylor-Joy, and the newest ambassador to join the maison, Rosalía.
Jisoo and Anya Taylor-Joy have attended a handful of Dior events in the past and even co-starred in a campaign for Dior Makeup & Cosmetics.
Still To Come…
Paris Fashion Week is still not over yet!
Some of the biggest brand names in fashion like Chanel and Louis Vuitton will send their collections down the runway on the very last day, Oct. 1, so stay tuned!
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