In Paris, Ujoh’s light suit, Pierre Cardin’s flashy geometries

Paris Fashion Week dedicated to women’s ready-to-wear ended Monday with an explosive program, dominated by star labels Chanel and Louis Vuitton. But many other houses paraded alongside these big names, once again proving the liveliness of the Parisian market. Like the Japanese label Ujoh, which revisits the suit in a summer version, or Cardin with its retro-futuristic fashion. .

Ujoh, who has been showing for six seasons at Paris Fashion Week, is gaining visibility and attracting more and more people to his show, with his mastered art of cutting, his essential fashion and his couture approach. Its founder, the Japanese Mitsuru Nishizaki (46 years old) worked as a modeler for Yohji Yamamoto for seven years before founding his own house in 2009. For spring-summer 2025, he is rethinking the tailoring world in ultra light mode.

Finding himself in Japan this summer in the middle of a heatwave, the designer tried to understand how to lighten the classic wardrobe as much as possible, while maintaining its elegance. In particular, the banker’s striped suit, his favorite piece. To face the extreme heat, he prunes at all costs. Wool gabardine jackets are hollowed out and cropped like short boleros. Sometimes, they are deprived of their sides and completely open at the back, or adopt short sleeves. Sleeveless, they are worn as a vest.

The typical vest is transformed into a bra. Loose pants have a vertical slit along the legs at the front, flowing like skirts. Office shirts are also shortened and gathered at the waist with drawstrings. In the same light woolen cloth, the designer makes maxi panel or wrap skirts and creates a strapless dress from a coat, from which he has removed the top.

Everything opens, breathes and undulates. This impression is accentuated by a play of layers and removable pieces, like this over-skirt, which seems to extend a jacket into a coat or this asymmetrical skirt revealing shorts. The lightness of the whole is further underlined by transparent organza elements which fit naturally into the wardrobe, between tunics, blouses, jackets, etc. Mitsuru Nishizaki has created a new accessory in particular: a classic shirt sleeve or transparent tulle, which extends into a stole, to be worn over a suit or as a trompe-l’oeil under a jacket, wrapping the rest of the piece around the neck.

The stylist also offers a series of sets made up of parachute jackets and skirts made from nylon, inspired by old tracksuit models from the equipment manufacturer Reebok, with whom he is signing a collaboration this season.

This season Pierre Cardin organized his fashion show on the Noti Club barge, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Rodrigo Basilicati-Cardin, who has taken over the reins of the house, puts all his efforts into faithfully maintaining the identity of the brand and continuing to bring it to life in the spirit of its founder. But the risk is undoubtedly to freeze it a little too much in its past and, in the end, the whole thing lacks a little hype.

Time sometimes seems to have stopped. The great-nephew of Pierre Cardin, in fact, displays on the podium a series of short dresses in the style Space Agesimilar to the models that made the brand successful in the 1960s and 1970s. Trapeze skirts, iridescent blue lamé jumpsuits, spaceship uniforms, visor glasses, hologram bags… For the most part, these are outfits with a very graphic design decorated with plastic details (shoulder pads, large buttons, cross stitches, etc.), in a Star Trek astronaut style.

The colors flash with a palette of bright and neon shades, often combined in contrast. All geometric shapes are summoned: squares, portholes, spheres, diamonds. Including red grid globes to put on the upper arms, like balloon sleeves. Often the proportions are overstated, sometimes making the garment difficult to wear, like these gigantic discs which serve as the sleeves of a bright yellow jumpsuit.

The house mainly uses recycled fabrics from its dormant stocks, giving a second life to certain materials, such as vinyl, wool crepe and organza.