Paris in chiaroscuro on the 3rd day of the shows with Jeanne Friot, Rick Owens, Bluemarble and 032c

Paris Men’s Fashion Week dedicated to the fall-winter 2025/26 collections continues at a forced march from one podium to another, despite a threatening gray sky. Thursday, on the third day of the shows, the designers were divided between two very distinct veins. On the one hand, a fashion that is both dark and powerful conditioned by the current times, with Jeanne Friot, Rick Owens and 032c. On the other, a warmer and joyful style adopted by more optimistic brands. Like Bluemarble.

A space that could resemble an industrial warehouse, like those frequented by Rick Owens for more than twenty years in Emilia Romagna (central Italy), more precisely around the town of Concordia, where his suppliers and factories are located. To create the atmosphere, a wall covered with blinding spotlights, a good dose of fog and David Bowie’s hit “Heroes” played at full volume. The semi-wakeful audience is startled and suddenly wakes up. The American designer can send the models.

Perched on their high-platform boots, they are dressed in shoulder protectors or mini bolero jackets, revealing their bare torsos, or in fine-knit knitwear that goes down to the thighs, while the legs are protected by soft grandfather’s long johns in wool jersey or very flared pants.

As always, the slender silhouette seems to stretch to infinity. An impression accentuated by the fringed edges of certain pants which ruffle below the knee into a voluminous triangle like a rooster’s leg, with leather straps resembling feathers.

The Rick Owens man happily mixes outdoor pieces with a more cozy loungewear universe, via boxer shorts, undershirts, ultra-thin tank tops with wide, plunging necklines. As a pendant, it parades with a very chic cow hair luggage tag, a nod to the collaboration signed between the house and Rimowa.

Pants, anoraks, tops, etc. reveal textured and intriguing surfaces, objects of different treatments and research in materials, always with an ecological approach.

Jeanne Friot hits hard! The queer stylist known for her eco-sustainable and inclusive commitments comes to parade under the Alexandre III bridge, the same place where her famous rider in Seven Leagues boots emerged from the Seine this summer during the opening ceremony of the Games Olympics, bringing him unprecedented popularity.

For fall-winter 2025/26, the designer starts from the character of Joan of Arc, which she reinterprets through various silhouettes genderfluidwhere his thigh-high boots made with belt buckles play the stars, as well as the theme of armor, both protective and defensive, transposed into his daily wardrobe. Apart from a few chainmail models, the majority of pieces are completely wearable, which does not detract from their character, such as the denim jacket available in silver, faux leatherette fabric or a shiny scarlet quilted down, paired with Bermuda shorts, a mini skirt or matching boots.

The designer reconnects with her original identity both in the palette, red, black and silver, which made her known, and through numerous signature pieces. Like jeans with ostrich feathers, redesigned this season via a collaboration with Levi’s, or bralettes, skirts and strapless dresses made entirely from recycled belts. Buckled belt fasteners are also used in prints on tight-fitting dresses and jumpsuits or used to close maxi coats and jackets, including the classic black evening jacket thus revitalized.

A crazy energy runs through this powerful collection, where the neo-punk black and white tartan pattern stands out, developed exclusively for the designer, which can be found in tone-on-tone tie shirts, jackets and wrap-around plaid skirts. In the register black and whitethere is also this skirt suit cut in a woolen fabric with crow’s feet.

“I returned to the DNA and the basics of the brand while redeveloping them. The shapes are very structured and supported. These are clothes that we wear like armor,” summarizes Jeanne Friot who, despite the success and the maturity of its proposals is still confined to the presentation calendar.

For its second show at Paris Fashion Week, the Berlin brand 032c attracted the crowd with a collection oscillating between a dark style and a more bourgeois wardrobe. Launched in 2016 by the eponymous Berlin magazine, this brand streetwear of luxury ready-to-wear for men and women has attracted a wider audience in recent years with its minimal and contemporary style.

Its artistic director, Maria Koch, alternates very dark total looks with latex gloves and vinyl thigh-high boots. From a distance, the clutch held in the models’ hands extended by leather straps looks like a whip. Jackets, pants and short-sleeved shirts are available in all leather. The wardrobe also includes large anoraks, suede sets and gabardine jackets. Always in black with military khaki incursions.

The whole is softened by pastel elements, such as pale pink wool or felt coats accompanied by a matching backpack or such as this mint green belt, which breaks up a black look. Unexpected white daisies grow on a black mohair sweater, while these ladies walk around in tights and black panties with a double belt.

Change of register at Bluemarble, where Anthony Alvarez welcomes us at tea time, with tables full of cakes, piles of pancakes and other treats. The designer of Franco-Filipino origin born in the United States immerses us in the warm atmosphere of his childhood snacks shared with his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents in the Yvelines countryside, in Feucherolles, where he grew up from 8 to 17 years old.

The designer abandons the Instagrammable excesses of recent seasons to focus on a more cozy and everyday wardrobe, designed for strolling in the woods as well as on the tarmac, without sacrificing work on materials, cuts and finishes. details. Colorful windbreakers (turquoise, red) slip under thick coats with wide lapels in bright colors.

Cable-knit sweaters knitted in warm wool reveal intarsias at the elbows as if they were worn or had holes. They are topped with thick neck warmers decorated with fine beaded and baguette fringes like old lampshades. Eras collide in this collection, between current style and memories of the past, not without a certain nostalgia. Like these patterns on t-shirts as if erased by time or these retro embroidered patches, city badges, appearing on hoodies and jeans. “My mother was curious about everything. We would go on adventures to meet people, bringing back magnets from each city we visited,” remembers Anthony Alvarez.

Everything exudes comfort. As in these knotted knits draped over the shoulders, these big sheepskin jackets in dapper colors, these pants tucked into Camargue buckskin boots, these baggy tracksuits decorated with lace patterns and these large plaids dotted with crystals in which wrap up warmly.