It’s an overcast Monday morning in Paris and Carla Bruni is on the front row at Schiaparelli, barely visible through a cloud of vape smoke.

Everyone’s in town for the first haute couture fashion week of the year. The model Farida Khelfa and Emily in Paris actress Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu sandwich Bruni, forming an ageless trio. J-Lo, Zendaya and Hunter Schafer sit opposite as the 20th Century Fox fanfare ripples through the Petit Palais.

Soon, Daniel Roseberry’s latest creations appear on the runway. A microchip mini-dress adorned with brick phones immortalises the antiquated early millennial tech revolution, making motherboards into bijoux. Mind-boggling is one way to think about the thousands of hours of handwork in couture and the surrealist tendencies of Schiaparelli, a gloriously unpredictable fashion house founded in 1927. No-one expected the viral robot baby on the hip of house muse Maggie Maurer, who recently gave birth. I did a double take. You can expect to question your own sanity, and eyesight, when it comes to haute couture.

Next, tech meets Texas with silk horse dressage-style braids on a sculpted denim jacket. A bandanna features hand-painted paillettes and a black velvet dress has hips which bounce like a saddle. American country singer Kacey Musgraves, a Texan like Roseberry, smiles approvingly, as do his adoring family clan, who’ve flown in specially.

There’s time to kill before the Christian Dior show at the Musée Rodin. I polish off French onion soup, of course, at a café nearby and people-watch as influencers arrive metamorphosed by their next outfits of the day. After being herded through the hordes of paparazzi and out into the museum’s garden, we perch on white blocks inside the erected show box, where textiles artist Isabella Ducrot sets the scene with her gargantuan artworks.

They depict 16-foot-high dresses erected with a childlike naivety, their basic shapes inspired by how the Ottoman sultans showed political power through the sheer dimensions of their garbs. The installation got me thinking about the history of the Christian Dior woman, who, since 1947’s New Look, has used revolutionary silhouettes for empowerment. Artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri loves a feminist undertone, so it’s no surprise to see a collection that meditates on the 1952 La Cigale dress. Named after its use of a cantilevered skirt and moiré fabric, it appears like molten waves under the show lights. It’s Rihanna’s late arrival, however, which steals the show. The last time she was at a Dior runway she wore a clear négligée that showed her baby bump. This time around she caused a stir by choosing a modern rendition of the Dior Bar jacket, equipped with exaggerated lapels.

It’s 9:41am on Tuesday and I’m in the car en route to the Chanel show. It starts in 19 minutes, but I’m still half an hour away. There’s an unspoken rule that fashion shows never start on time, but I can’t run the risk – it’s Chanel! My fate is in the hands of our nifty driver J-M, who knows every backstreet in Paris.

Armed with the retro cinema invite, we pull up to the Grand Palais Éphémère in the nick of time. Soon, I’m safely cocooned under a gargantuan Chanel button, which looks like a flying saucer with the famed double C emblem in the middle. Actress Margaret Qualley waltzes out sporting a classic tweed two-piece and a cheeky smile. A Kendrick Lamar score reverberates as tulle and camelia feather boas explode from the hips of a tunic dress, an organza train embroidered with flowers tumbles out from the hem of a mini-dress and high organdy ruffs frame the faces of Qualley and model of the moment Amelia Gray.

Virginie Viard’s ballet girls come in candy-floss pink, mint choc chip green and vanilla white, concocting delicious ensembles in house tweeds, speckled with metallic threads and Lesage embroideries that wink as they whisk past. Viard is responsible for the precious mantle that is Chanel, a heritage brand passed down from grandmothers to granddaughters. You can feel these one-of-a-kind pieces becoming instant treasures for the generations to come. Private clients are crucial to couture, whether it’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Ms Sutton Stracke at Alexis Mabille, or the client I spot at Giorgio Armani Privé who is cocooned in a fur coat (undoubtedly not faux). Her pursed lips, painted red, are framed by wise lines. Eyes are hidden behind dark glasses and her head spins like a car dog bobbling at each of the 92 looks which pay homage to Armani’s woman of the world. Whether that’s the kimono’s influence on a beaded crystal jacket or his ethereal floating gowns, Mr Armani has spent more than 50 years creating fantasies for the couture client to live in. You can’t help but smile when the 89-year-old master takes his bow.

That night, an intimate selection of guests are invited to Pieter Mulier’s off-schedule Alaïa show. Only Alaïa can get Naomi Campbell to perch on a chair arm for 20 minutes, although the Philippe Malouin-designed bulbous chairs are marvellously comfortable. Shown in three sittings at the Alaïa store to guests including Raf Simons and Rita Ora, Fall 2024 wasn’t billed as haute couture, but it was right up there. Mulier stripped things back and made something excellent. One merino wool yarn to make every outfit, including sculptural bulbous wool sleeves and millefeuille-effect trousers, which fluttered as models walked. Forget quiet luxury, these are clothes to shout about.

On Wednesday afternoon, Simone Rocha’s signature perspex shoes marched along the foil-covered runway of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Rue Saint-Martin show space. Since he retired from designing back in 2020, the French enfant terrible has been handing the keys of his couture atelier over to a revolving string of designers. It’s been a roaring success. This season, it’s Irish designer Rocha’s turn, following in the footsteps of Glenn Martens, Olivier Rousteing and Julien Dossena.

Rocha’s motifs melt into Gaultier’s: corsets provoke the fragility of tulle skirts, bows form marinière stripes and embroidery dances across the panniers of a skirt which nods to his 1985 costume design for dance piece Le Défilé. I wonder what Kylie Jenner, Gossip Girl’s Kelly Rutherford and Amelia Dimoldenberg think of it all, as they whisper to one another. Do they pick up on the odes to home? We see Rocha’s wildflower jewel-adorned ears nodding to the wild Irish landscape and her signature lace dipped in silver paint. A fatherly kiss on the cheek from Monsieur Gaultier at the end of the show seals a new chapter for Rocha.

From an Irish fairytale to the Dutch avant-garde, Viktor & Rolf play Edward Scissorhands as the snip-snip of garment-cutting soundtracks seven sets of outfits – couture clothes are cut down to their bones, Instagram-ready as always. Then, as night falls, it’s trickery of the subtle kind at Pierpaolo Piccioli’s Valentino. The ornate rooms of the Italian brand’s Place Vendôme HQ nodded to a traditional salon show, but these were clothes for now. “Clothes for reality,” said Piccioli, like the perfect mustard tailored palazzo pants. There were still opera coats and exploding taffeta skirts, but the overarching feeling was that these are clothes for the everyday. Of course, the couture client wants a hooded khaki parka jacket trimmed with hand-painted organza feathers.

The final day begins with a surprising, yet completely beautiful, stark black shift dress by Fendi. What follows is a scintillating collection of ethereal silver fringing and silk gazar, genius fabrications that mirror the visual effects of fur – Kim Jones is following in his predecessor Karl Lagerfeld’s ultra-modern ways. Refreshed, I skip to the other side of town for Robert Wun, one of the new guard. Penning an ode to the darker sides of love, Wun’s signature crystal-embroidered raindrops and blood splatters are even more astounding up close. Speaking to a cinematic sensibility – Wun has a history as a costume designer – what’s even better is that these looks stand up on camera.

Hours later, I find myself under the gilded archway of the Pont Alexandre III, illuminated by the first full moon of the year. The warm glow of the lamps inside an abandoned 1920s speakeasy beckon me inside to the Maison Margiela Artisanal show. Purpose-built for the occasion, the bar’s dusty wooden floorboards, abandoned absinthe shots and chalk drawings of lovers set the scene for a moment in fashion history.

As if transported through the faded, vintage mirror which sits behind Madame Bijou in Brassaï’s infamous photograph at the turn of the 20th century, soon we’re inside the genius workings of John Galliano’s mind. Setting us down in the underbelly of Paris’s past, a performance by actor and dancer Lucky Love and a fashion film by Britt Lloyd open the show, as the speakeasy roars to life.

House muse Leon Dame steps out of the film and onto the cobbled banks of the Seine. His shadow appears at the doorway before his figure lurches inside, cinched to Victorian proportions with corsets which perforate a collection defined by Galliano’s favourite thing:memory. Memories of a jacket, made into a skirt, or a trouser as a sleeve. Memories of a character, imagined and real all at once. Silk organza becomes a corrugated cardboard ensemble, while degradé threadwork mirrors the markings of a Fauvist painter. Lace negligees reveal faux pubic hair and human hair is hand-embroidered on silk tulle. Moving in only the way a model directed by Pat Boguslawski can, the Galliano troupe includes actress Gwendoline Christie. They sport frizzy poofs by Duffy and Pat McGrath’s glassy doll make-up, which sends TikTok berserk.

The next morning, bleary-eyed at Gare du Nord, I check the time. It’s early and the passport queue is moving at a glacial pace. Then, the towering, marvellous Gwendoline whisks past inconspicuously in a forgettable black coat, hair scraped back. All at once, that night under the bridge in Paris feels like a dream.

Taken from 10 Magazine Australia Issue 23 – DARE TO DREAM – out now!

@10magazineaustralia

Photographer GAVIN BOND
Text HETTY MAHLICH
Fashion co-ordinators GARTH ALLDAY SPENCER and ZAC APOSTOLOU