In Paris, Fashion Week opts for parades despite omicron<

Fashion week, which begins on Tuesday "presents itself well in the context which is ours", says Pascal Morand, of the Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion, interviewed by AFP.

Nearly thirty brands, including Courrèges and Issey Miyake, are planning "real" presentations that are less formal than fashion shows, to which journalists and buyers are invited.

And of the 76 houses listed on the official men's ready-to-wear calendar, 17 are organizing fashion shows compared to six in June, in a more serene health context. Among them, Dior, Hermès, Rick Owens and Y/Project, as well as Kenzo, with its brand new artistic director, the Japanese Nigo, famous in the streetwear world, at the helm.

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Egonlab, a French brand founded two years ago by Florentin Glémarec and Kévin Nompeix, which made a name for itself with artistic videos, is entering the official calendar with a fashion show. "All brands today want to parade," says Florentin Glémarec. "Parade alongside the big houses that have influenced us a lot, that does something to us". "It's exciting to be able to offer a real experience to the people who follow us," adds Kévin Nompeix.

However, Egonlab "is not 100% leaving the digital side, we have an NFT and metaverse project (the future virtual world on which the digital giants are working) that we are developing with a start-up in collaboration with Crocs”, the manufacturer of plastic clogs, adds Kévin Nompeix.

Giorgio Armani has already canceled his shows

As for haute couture, an exclusively Parisian biannual fashion event, which will be held immediately after, from January 24 to 27, 18 out of 29 houses are preparing for shows, even if some recognize that the evolution of the health situation could still make them change their minds.

The Sidaction dinner, in aid of the fight against AIDS, which traditionally closes the week of haute couture, has been postponed to July.

Giorgio Armani threw a chill by canceling its ready-to-wear fashion shows in Milan and haute couture in Paris last week due to the new wave of covid-19. An air of deja vu, because it was the 87-year-old maestro who had been the first to give up the parades at the very beginning of the pandemic, in February 2020.

“It’s their choice,” says Pascal Morand. The Federation summarizes the recommendations of the administrations and “recommends” to the “covid referents” of each brand measures, such as the wearing of the FFP2 mask.

"We have learned to live with covid", summarizes Pascal Morand and it is the "deep aspiration" for the physical that prevails over the health constraints. "Digital enriches the physical but does not replace the emotion and the sensory side of the show".

"We have to plan a lot of scenarios"

Jean-Paul Cauvin, director of the Julien Fournié fashion house, feels himself "caught in the crossfire". “We are frustrated not to parade but I hope that we are not going to create a new haute couture cluster”, he affirms during the shooting of a film to accompany the parade on January 25. "I had to choose a larger studio for sanitary reasons, there must be a distance of one meter between the people seated". With the models testing positive after the castings, the workers in the workshop suffering from covid, which “delays the collections”, and the regulations which change all the time, “we have to plan for a lot of scenarios”, he concludes.