Paris Fashion Week is underway, with brands presenting their new designs for the Fall/Winter 2022 season. Here, Whitewall is revisiting collections shown by Cecilie Bahnsen, Patou, Nanushka, Koché, and Courrèges.
Courtesy of Cecilie Bahnsen.
For her Fall/Winter 2022 collection, designer Cecilie Bahnsen called upon the words of Danish author Tove Ditlevsen, whose poem Night Wandering painted the scene of a cool, damp night with tones of joy and peace. The house’s dreamy dress silhouettes returned for the season with new textures and fabrications, taking on a mood of youthful daring in hues of blush pink, red, bright blue, and electric green. We saw Bahnsen’s signature puffed sleeves and full skirts applied to styles like cocoon dress shapes, short dresses with thin straps, long robe-like silhouettes, and layered pairings of dresses and pants, each featuring details like wrapped bows, blouses buttoned over ruffles, monochrome embroidery, and textural fabrications. The new season brought with it delicate, effeminate accessories, like handbags outfitted with drawstrings, bows, and rouching, and a suite of neoprene Mary Jane shoes, which accompanied each look.
Courtesy of Patou.
Matching sets, casual dresses, and logoed accessories were mainstays of Patou’s Fall/Winter 2022 collection, which ebbed and flowed between girlish playfulness and sophistication. Captured in a lighthearted lookbook of imagery featuring a toy-sized puppy—who was sporting matching garb—we saw hues of black, white, pastel blue, and lavender making up the palette for the comfortable-yet-feminine silhouettes. There were boxy jackets and matching A-line mini skirts, fitted dresses with puffed sleeves, sportswear-reminiscent shorts, and a suite of knitwear featuring details like scalloped edges and flat, square collars. Several pieces were imagined in a quilted outerwear materialization, like a romper in lavender, a pair of glossy black shorts, and accessories like branded bucket hats and bags. Other highlights included a striped shirt dress updated with an embroidered pilgrim collar, a hoodie with a long ribbon in place of drawstrings, and the suite of thigh-high wader boots that added an element of functionality to garments less suited to inclement weather.
Courtesy of Koché.
Within the gorgeous interiors of Le Westin Paris, Koché debuted its Fall/Winter 2022 designs, which looked at fashion as a form of healing. The house aimed to envelop the body in comfortable designs that had a handle on reality, also acknowledging that a little poetry is necessary to bring about beauty. This—paired with designer Christelle Kocher’s masterful couture techniques—brought us a series of highly-detailed garments like silken bombers with structured shoulders, lace handkerchief dresses with leather gloves that functioned as sleeves, knits covered with three-dimensional roses, and long skirts in delicate tiers of tulle ruffles, outfitted with beaded accents. The collection also featured a footwear collaboration with Charles Jourdan, who helped to imagine fun styles like a furry ankle boot with a kitten heel, green mules with a metallic tip and heel that appeared to be made from blue metal hardware, and a pair of fuzzy heeled slides in deep purple.
Courtesy of Nanushka.
Nanushka’s Fall/Winter 2022 collection “Industrial Craft” was built around Creative Director Sandra Sandor’s ideology that if something is made to function well, it will be, by definition, beautiful. From this starting point, the brand focused on pragmatic silhouettes with an eccentric attitude, which brought versatile styles easily dressed up or down, seen in a varied palette ranging from black and neutrals to buttercup yellow and bright blue. While few items were commonplace enough to be considered wardrobe basics, ensembles were crafted from quintessential silhouettes, updating them in color, detail, and styling choices—like a slightly oversized suit with one button to the side and flare-legged pants, a sweetheart blouse in velvet with a printed wrap skirt, and a roomy knit tunic with a hood paired with matching cable knit pants. Also of note were the collection’s accessories, including pillowy clutches, wristlet bags, and hand-dripped jewelry made from recycled metal by Vasiliki.
Courtesy of Courrèges.
Elements of geometry and opposition built the basis of Courrèges’s Fall/Winter 2022 collection, which was first seen on a black catwalk surrounding a pit of crumpled silver cans. A push and pull between innocence and intensity and light and shadow brought us hues of black, white, wine, and fiery red and yellow, along with the occasional glimmer of silver, which painted fitted silhouettes with a dauntless edge. Dress slacks were paired with barely-there bra tops, tees were updated with fluttery sleeves, simplistic leather shapes featured cut-outs up and down the sides, and garments with more coverage were juxtaposed with pieces like mini skirts, glossy leather jackets, and thigh-high boots. Classics like peacoats offered a geometric twist, seen on styles like a white jacket with rounded sleeves and a coat with a silvery caped backing. Accessories were kept minimalistic, including shoulder-sweeping earrings, oversized goggle shades, small shoulder bags with rectangular bodies, and the occasional baseball cap.
