Gone are the days when models, wearing outfits that seemed to target people in their sixties and over, paraded monotonously in formal salons. That was the dusty
high fashion. From 1974, when Women’s Ready-to-Wear Fashion Week was created in Paris, the fashion shows became artistic creations; of statues, the models become “creatures” (Pat Cleveland). This is what Loïc Prigent’s hour and a half documentary shows, which immerses us, with his characteristic cheerful tone, in the archives and dissects the evolution of this biannual week. All imbued with love, and not devoid of humor.
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Parisian Fashion Week, welcoming the great talents of its time without turning its back on foreign designers – who now make up 80% of it – has been, from its beginnings, and remains, the undeniable Contemporary Fashion Week. From now on, thanks in particular to the budgets of the luxury groups Kering and LVMH, a train will start in a tent in the Cour Carré of the Louvre (Louis Vuitton, 2012); a rocket will be launched from the Grand Palais, which will also be converted into a life-size supermarket (Chanel, 2014); similar storms will disrupt the models’ walk (Balenciaga, 2022, echoing the Russian invasion of Ukraine).
An elliptical review
The director and commentator, who is used to such events, cannot help but be critical, as he loves fashion and the people who make it – including the security guards, one of whom is questioned, as are Jean Paul Gaultier and the former model Inès de la Fressange.
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We forgive him for the ellipsis made of the ecological weight of such an event, because, at the time of this bicentenary, his film is above all a celebration of the environment. He succeeds in humanizing it, in giving it back an extra soul that could otherwise be lost in the multi-million euro budgeted parades of the 2010s.
France 5, 21 h 05.
