The Paris Fashion Haute Couture Week celebrates the most expensive, tailor-made end of fashion. The couture displayed by the designers at this biannual event is no ordinary. And today, we will discuss the top six designers from the haute couture fall-winter 2023-24.
This year, the Paris Fashion Haute Couture Week Fall-Winter collection kickstarted at the French capital amidst the violent protests. And as expected, the Haute Couture Week wrapped up last week, disclosing some gorgeous collections.
Despite riot fears, the couture designers showcased their best designs, each piece being a handmade spectacle of high-end couture. Some of the top Haute Couture designers from around the globe brought many fascinating trends to this season’s runways. And the couturiers also represented some unique concepts.
For instance, the collections featured flowy long gowns, intricate features, and elaborate silhouettes in the Art Deco style. Neutrals such as tan, black and white, and royals were prominent colors of the season. However, vibrant reds, forest greens, royal blues, and even pops of bright purple were visible.
Here is my list of the top six designers and their most eye-catching looks from the Paris Fashion Haute Couture Week Fall-Winter 2023-24.
SCHIAPARELLI
After a more constant approach last season, Daniel Roseberry takes flight with Schiaparelli’s Fall-Winter 2023-2024 show. The design collection “And the Artists” heavily inspired the artists. However, the concept was not just about the artist’s craft or performance. Just as Roseberry, a creative director with an unmatched capacity for exploration and humor, relishes in the creative journey. The designer goes beyond the usual references to find inspiration that would fly by the heads of many.
The collection is a blurry amalgam of disparate worlds of creation, merging in a way that finds the focal point if we tap into a primal sense of wonder. Roseberry illustrates the “creative innocence” in the face of a sober world, and it’s captivating.
Schiaparelli’s design collections often seem inspired by the human body, with silhouettes tailored to flatter retro feminine shapes and craft-like accessories that never overwhelm the wearer. And the bodies are not lost with this season’s concept. The connection to human forms continues for Schiaparelli’s Fall-Winter 23-24 collection, with the bright royal blue design featuring the top with body paint blended up the neck. The blue pigment represents the human body and its connection to typical fashion devices. A human face emerges from the gold palm leaf necklace, which serves partly as the ensemble’s top.
Roseberry also makes a statement with a white cover-up, combining eye-catching textures such as soft wool and wooden accessories. The trademark anatomical toes reappeared, as did gilded ears in the form of a coat button. But it’s the pearl-encrusted capped pumps and slit peep toe shapes that, though more streamlined than we’re used to from Roseberry, stir excitement.
IRIS VAN HERPEN
The artistic vision of the creative director, Iris Van Herpen, has forged a new path in Haute Couture yet again. She draws inspiration from dance, choreography, science, architecture, music, and new technology to create sublime designs.
This season, Van Herpen found inspiration in the architects employing the concept of bionic architecture, calling the collection “Achitectonics.” Bionic Architecture is a concept or theory that studies how biological systems respond to stimuli and adapt to their environment by designing architecture that exists harmoniously between nature and society. Van Herpen envisions a world where humans will adapt to changes in our environment and live in equally self-sufficient structures. Her design collection set forth a visual archetype for what our future will look like. But what does this concept look like in action?
Iris Van Herpen’s collection blurred the lines between fashion and nature, combining the beauty of the human body through artistic design. The metallic gold geometric shapes from the collection elaborate an art-deco feel, yet modernized in its small silhouette shape. As the visual language creates, the challenge for Van Herpen will be to continue offering practical innovation in the face of forced evolution.
JUANA MARTIN
With this new collection, “Fieras,” Juana Martin transcends an emotional journey. She envisions deep sadness and destruction to a gradual emergence of peace and freedom. The designer from Cordoba takes inspiration from the post-Spanish Civil War and the dark atmosphere that surrounded it.
Juana’s runway show detailed some incredible artistry, and it has taken meticulous effort to design each dress to convey the post-Spanish Civil War story. She played with symbols to embellish the pieces. For example, the bull in the collection represents the strength of the Spanish people. Then, some ensembles reference the human face and body, which is also her style of imagery blending with the concept. For example, the hands encircling the dress represent a form of oppression, and the eyes as government surveillance.
This collection also places great importance on cubist and abstract art, the same art form raised as a rebellion against the nationalism of the period. Based on the Spanish artistic movement, the neutral color palette with white, black, gray, and silver tones is predominantly inspired.
RAHUL MISHRA
The Indian couturier Rahul Mishra produced silhouettes with intricate designs and an inspiring concept. The collection surfaces the fashion workers’ captivating trance interwoven with their immediate reality. As you can see in the collection video, the runway showcases an embroiderer sitting in a concrete cube on a cushioned pad, deftly looping, knotting, and tugging silk thread through plain fabric with a sharp needle hook called the “Aari.” It represents how so many hours, days, and months are exhausted to precisely loop each stitch at a pace of one per second, finally transforming yards of fabric into a couture garment.
Reality and imagination collide in the collection dubbed ‘We, The People,’ bringing the artisans to the forefront of the tale. They are envisioned not just as creators but also as the intersection of artistic expression, time-honored craftsmanship, and technical competence, endowing them with a divine ability to transform conception into reality. As India becomes the world’s most populous country, Mishra inspires his collection from the report. He considers the relevance of “people” inside the country’s identity and ever-expanding community. The atelier honors every life affected by Mishra‘s Couture, acknowledging the strength it brings to the system as a whole.
The most whimsical ensemble in this collection is the Bridal design. It is a beautiful off-white two-piece with embroidered pastel flowers and a sheer veil. The time and effort spent on this piece and its most finite details indicate a labor of love. Also, the vibrant purple two-piece set is eye-catching. With every detail, the top resembles the petals of a flower, down to its veins and spots.
ELIE SAAB COUTURE
Glimpses of a distant past create into the mesmerizing present in Elie Saab Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2023-24. With “Regal Reverie,” the label reinterprets contours of long ago through a contemporary lens of magnificence and poise.
Elie Saab’s generous spirits are revealed through structured silhouettes of gracious composure, slipping ethereal wisdom and delicate fortitude. His designs always impress and are a staple couture line every season.
My best-loved design of this collection feels like it has stepped directly out of a royal castle. A gorgeous royal green felt, with nude cut-outs creating intricate designs along the dress’s entirety. In addition, the connected hood and cape create a lavish and classical feel, allowing the overall design to crossover between timeless and modern beauty.
ASHI STUDIO COUTURE
Mohammed Ashi names his Fall-Winter 2023-24 collection the “Essence.” With mastery of volume and a quest for purity in each line, Ashi Studio presents a couture collection inspired by Patrick Süskind’s hauntingly powerful novel Perfume. Passion, obsession, and mystery permeate dramatic silhouettes, embodying the visceral quest for the ultimate expression of art. Just as extraction transforms the soul of a plant into scent, Ashi uses meticulous craftsmanship to reconstruct immaterial notions of memory, yearning, and fragrance into couture.
The couturier approaches dressing as “undressing” to extract the essence of couture, moving gradually from coarse, bare materials to architectural studies, transparency, and the balance between richness and prudence.
For example, in one of the dresses, the corset top pulls away from a dark outer layer, ecru organza envelops curves like ultra-soft silk with diaphanous billows of fabric evoke a scent trail, wrapped sensuously around the head while leaving the shoulders and bust exposed.
Then, an S-curved silhouette contours the body like a modern perfume bottle, with strategically placed cut-outs celebrating the female form. A vintage bottle is fashioned into origami-like folds on an evening gown and designed on a shoe heel created with ombré resin to make it appear half full.
As a poetic ode to dark romance, the runway featured a diverse cast reflecting Ashi’s Oriental roots. In keeping with the couturier’s flair for drama, it was unveiled onstage at the iconic Théatre du Châtelet in Paris. In that context, with all the headiness of a signature perfume, the Ashi Studio Fall-Winter 2023-24 couture collection celebrated self-expression, fluidity, and voluptuousness tinged with danger.
