What Is Paris Fashion Week

We break down what Paris Fashion Week actually is, why it includes multiple seasons, and how men’s shows can quietly deliver some of the most creative runway moments. We also zoom in on haute couture rules, the fashion week calendar ahead, and the two menswear highlights that stayed on our minds. 
• men’s Paris Fashion Week recap and why it can feel under the radar 
• how heat waves change show schedules and runway logistics 
• why Paris hosts men’s, couture, and ready-to-wear weeks 
• what makes haute couture “couture” and why it’s treated as art 
• the upcoming fashion calendar: couture in July, Copenhagen in August, then New York, Milan, London, Paris in September 
• how social media and fashion journalists shape what you actually see 
• Louis Vuitton under Pharrell Williams, set design, accessories, and gender-fluid styling 
• Willy Chavarria’s Comunion, Chicano influences, and Latin culture on a Paris runway 

People mentioned: https://www.instagram.com/ideservecouture?igsh=MXZyZGhhOW8za3czeQ==

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Transcript

What Paris Fashion Week Means

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hi, and welcome back to another episode of That's the Beam. Today's topic: what is Paris Fashion Week? First of all, men's Paris Fashion Week just happened from June 23rd to June 28th. And I think it's one of the not so loud fashion weeks. It just happened. So there's still some noise around it, but also social media just moves things so fast. And if you're not following the right pages or just like very into fashion, I feel like this fashion week specifically kind of just flew by. Also, seems like Europe is under a heat wave. So a lot of the shows, from what I saw, were moved from the afternoon to the early morning to avoid people and guests being in the heat during the shows. And I think men's fashion doesn't get the credit that it should. But it's definitely out there. And I mean, we saw a lot of the bigger houses like Dior, Louis Vuitton, um, that I mean caught my attention a little bit more.

Why Paris Has Multiple Fashion Weeks

SPEAKER_00 1:46

But in reality, Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week, there's not just one, there's a few, actually, throughout the year. So as I mentioned, Men's Paris Fashion Week just happened, and up next, we'll be seeing a couture Paris Fashion Week starting July 6th to 9th, which is one of the biggest fashion weeks in the year.

Haute Couture Rules And Craftsmanship

SPEAKER_00 2:18

It really highlights the craftsmanship, hours and hours made or worked in individual pieces to be highlighted through these shows. There are sometimes 30 to 70 pieces per show, depending on the designer, the collection, and it needs to meet very specific specifications to be considered an eau couture item. First of all, it needs to be made in Paris, it needs to be completely made by hand, and it needs to be approved by the French Federation de la Eau Couture et de la Mode. Excuse my French. I know it sucks, but I'm trying and I love the language, so um I try to pronounce the French pronunciations as best as I can. For example, Eau Couture. I know that's not like the perfect way to say it, and if you see it spelt and if you speak English, you're probably not gonna pronounce it right, but that's as close as it gets for me. Anyway, very well spent hours of handmade craftsmanship in each item to be featured during Haute Couture Fashion Week, and most of these items or most of these designs are very much to highlight the brands or more so the designers' talents and craftsmanship and creativity because in all the other fashion weeks items are usually or designs are usually more for ready-to-wear. Yes, you will have some high fashion aspect to it, and something that's gonna maybe create some talk about the pieces and how it's executed throughout the show. I mean, there's a lot that goes into every show, fashion show, and it's just how well a designer executes it. But specifically, Haute Couture, it's very much on the design and the detailing, and how you can just get this anywhere because it's very much a specific piece. It's not like they're making multiple for ready-to-wear to later be sold on the stores. It's more so like a piece of art that's created and shown on the runway, which can later be worn more so for artists, special occasions, PR. It's more of the artistry behind the designer and the brand. So I really wanted to highlight a little bit more about like what are these fashion weeks and what are they highlighting, and what do they even mean? Why do they even exist? Because if you're not invested in the fashion industry, I feel like it's easy to get lost in how many fashion weeks there actually are, and not knowing like when is which and which one's more important, and like which one do I pay attention to. It's definitely a lot. It's taken me a while, and I still like forget some of the fashion weeks that are coming or are happening. Sometimes they just like happen, and I see them on social media, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I need to talk about this in the podcast. Um, and I like totally forgot when it was, kind of think. But I'm just here to inform a little bit. So going back to men's parents fashion week, as I mentioned, just happened, ended June 28th. Up

The Fashion Week Calendar Ahead

SPEAKER_00 6:39

next, we have Paris Haute Couture starting July 6th, and after that, we have actually Copenhagen Fashion Week happening in August, which is a fairly new fashion week, I want to say, and not so much new within the time that it's been happening, but more of it being highlighted by the bigger industries and just more designers being put in the spot and being able to showcase outside of Milan, Paris, and New York, which I believe are just the biggest fashion cities. There's of course London too, but I feel like for the last two years I haven't heard a lot about designs and designers' shows that are really being highlighted in London. So that might change, but you don't know. But after August, we have fashion's biggest month, September, starting with New York Fashion Week. Then we have um Milan, London, and closing with Paris. So for the rest of the year, those are the biggest fashion weeks you can expect and be on the lookout for on who's creating, I feel like the more commotion social media, PR press. I

Following Fashion Week Without FOMO

SPEAKER_00 8:20

feel like designers really need to have that social media presence now on their shows and have, I mean, if I know anything about it, it's because I also follow these fashion journalists, but also fashion figures who have a very strong fashion representation online, and I just love seeing their POV on their pages and how they break down what is happening. So, one of my favorite ones, and I highly recommend you all to follow it if you don't already, but it's called I To Serve Couture. Love, love, love the page, love his content, and just how he explains everything with such realness. Just a page to look out for to keep you updated with all those fashion things.

Louis Vuitton’s Big Menswear Moment

SPEAKER_00 9:13

For me personally, this past uh men's Paris Fashion Week, one of the biggest highlights for me was Louis Vuitton with Farrell Williams as their men's creative director, and he really keeps impressing me on how creative he is, and of course, there's a team behind him, but just him being the face to grab attention to the brand and having him kind of keeping the brand on the more modern side, I would say. And I honestly think for Men's, he's been doing a really great job. His past two shows, I feel like they have really caught my attention. I'm not like a huge Louis Vuitton uh fan, but I really like what he's doing with the production side of things and how he's tying the accessories, especially for men's, because I feel like it's not that easy to put something new for men's. I feel like designers want to, but society is a little bit closed off to a certain extent. Um, and it's nice to see that his show actually had both women and male models because I feel like the brand is also so versatile, and everything that a man or male model could wear, the female model could actually also wear, and it looked just as great, so very like nine non-binary, very like anyone can use it if you like it. And I love the style of having like feminine figures being represented on the wrong way, but also, you know, if you're a woman and if you want to wear a suit, you can, and it doesn't have to be super tailored. I feel like it's a personal style if you want to do something more oversized, and I feel like that's for men and women, so that's something I really loved, and his set was insane. He literally built a an actual like wave of a background and a beach. So there was literally like a beach and a water wave looking background that had actual water running through it, so it looked like a wave was coming onto you, uh, for those like sitting there, and but you were like on the sand, and it was just kind of a fountain, so it just looked so real, and it made sense with the collection because it was very much Californian-based, kind of him representing that background of his onto this collection. And he had even wetsuits with the Louveton print on them, surfboards, very coastal, and I loved it. I feel like he said he did such a great job coordinating the set until his actual designs walking down the runway, and there were so many, so so many. Like, I feel like I was watching the show and it just kept going, and it was just an insane amount of designs. But kudos to him. I think uh everything came out beautifully and it just made sense. Um, so if you haven't seen it yet, a lot of it is on social media, but the whole entire show is on YouTube. So if you're watching this episode on YouTube, I mean you're already here on the platform, so might as well take a peek at that show. But yeah, for me, that was so impressive in regards to how it all looked together.

Willy Chavarria And Cultural Storytelling

SPEAKER_00 13:40

And my second, I feel like biggest highlight from Men's Paris Fashion Week was Willy Chavarrias. Oh my gosh, I'm such a fan of his. He's Latin American, based out of California, and the fact that he's doing something in Paris when he's not necessarily a French brand, that's also like a big misconception. Um, and I think in the past it used to be this way that you had to be a French brand to be featured during Paris Fashion Week. Same thing, like you had to be Italian to be in Milan and American in New York. But so many things have changed, and it's more so for designers and brands, in my opinion. If it makes sense for them that they're gonna be highlighted way more during this fashion week, no matter what the location is, brands are making smarter decisions to get more attention on different cities. So, I mean, I know like the bigger brands and designers who are well known to be French and Italian, for example, will be mostly debuting on you know their home spaces. Uh like it wouldn't make sense for Gucci to be featured in Paris when they can be featured in Milan, but they could if they wanted to, I guess. Like I just wanna make sense out of that. Where I mean Willie Chavaria is not French, but he's debuting on during Paris Fashion Week for the fact that he's a immense collection. So it's really up to the brand at this point to put themselves in the location they want to be featured where they think they're gonna get the most attention. But anyway, Willie Chavarria. Um he has very much of like a street classic style, um, like very Chicano, if you know what that means, very like Mexican American. Uh, in this particular collection, it was uh called Comunion, so like holy communion, but highlighting how like Hispanic and Latin cultures are very religious and how like the communion is known for being something that you like really have respect for and represents how you become part of the religion per se. So I really like that he ties the collection to something so like deep in the roots of Latin Hispanic-based cultures, but also making it more modern and more just known. I really like that he has this like old classic style bringing it into street style, and you saw a lot of the like top hats and bigger like looser pants that were used more, I feel like in the uh I want to say even like 30s, 40s at the time, at least with like Mexican culture. And I mean it just kind of touches my heart because of my background being a Latina, and I love that he's putting himself in Paris. Like that's amazing for a Latin American brand, regardless of the designs, regardless of of like politics, culture, whatever. It just shows how much the world can can be learned from each other and our cultures, and and I love that. I love like bringing different cultures together and learning from them. So the fact that he puts like Hispanic, um, Latin American outfits and culture and history into the streets of Paris, I think that's one of the coolest things. So culture-wise, I think his show really represented something bigger. Um, so I'm just excited to see what else he has on the works, and every show that I've seen since he started is just bigger and louder, and it's art, you know. But anyway, from men's Paris Fashion Week, those were my two highlights. Just to wrap up, know that Men's Paris Fashion Week just happened. Up next, we have Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week coming up in July, so super soon. I feel like Fashion World is just non-stop at this point, and you know, stay tuned for that as well as Copenhagen, but of course, New York.

Breaking Into New York Fashion Week

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Talking about New York, I know I've had um a few models reach out to me on like how to do it, how to get into New York Fashion Week, if especially if you're not living in New York, and I mean I've been doing it for it's gonna be my fourth, if not fifth year. Time flies. So I definitely want to put an episode about that out there, but also like maybe host some sort of informational workshop on whoever wants to participate, especially if you're in Texas. I love to share more on how I do it and I've been doing it, and yeah, just keeping connected, putting things out there, growing this fashion community.

Subscribe, Sponsor, And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 20:45

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