PFW 21: The French Fashion Revolution

There is an air of revolution in Paris, an air of change and subversion of the rules. We could in fact call it a small French fashion revolution that of this Paris Fashion Week 2021 which has just begun. The fashion houses have reinvented their codes, the silhouettes have changed and the styles mutated, blending the past with the future for an unconventional present. Yesterday, Christian Dior and Saint Laurent celebrated the “Storming of the Bastille” with their SS 22collections, in a succession of archive references and new inspirations.

Christian Dior

The 1960s of the Roman Piper club, their trapeze lines on miniskirts and dresses with dizzying lengths, the bright colors, gave an unprecedented light to the Avenue Montagne Maison yesterday. Maria Grazia Chiuri reinterpreted and interpreted the style of Marc Bohan, the creative director of the Maison who, in those years, revolutionized the Dior wardrobe with magnetic reds, greens, yellows, oranges, and blues. Chiuri brings back the revolution of those years on her SS22 show. One-color suits of cropped jackets and miniskirts, denim coord suits that wink at the male wardrobe, vinyl overcoats to combine with over-the-knee boots. The fit changes, it goes from being hyper-feminine to genderless with shorts and over-boxer jackets for looks that encourage immediacy. The gentle touch is given by bright fringes on dresses and tops to be worn with gladiator sandals that never cease to remember how femininity and independence go hand in hand at Dior.

Saint Laurent

While Dior screams change, Saint Laurent screams scandal. Anthony Vaccarello takes up the 1971 Collection du Scandal to break free from the patterns that in the last 4 seasons had closed fashion in a cage where freedom of expression was a privilege no longer granted. Saint Laurent is not afraid of controversy and offers his most authentic face in a collection made of super tight fits and bright colors. Tight-fitting jumpsuits with cut-out details tighten at the waist with oversized belts, recalling the lines of Paloma Picasso and her creative path. A new, seductive woman who mixes jersey with the more tailored cuts of boxy suits. The bourgeois woman leaves room for a bold and androgynous woman who reinvents the masculine silhouettes in a new and original women’s wardrobe.