Paris Fashion Week SS27, From the Front Row: Rihanna, Rosalía, ROSÉ, LISA and More

Paris Fashion Week’s first night ended at Place de la République, where Rihanna made a fashionably late entrance to Matières Fécales in a tinsel-textured skirt suit the label called “golden thread knit couture.” She set the tone for a nine-day week in which the best seats kept going to musicians: Rosalía and Jisoo at Dior, ROSÉ at Saint Laurent, Bladee and Kim Gordon at Acne Studios, Dua Lipa at Chanel and LISA at the Louis Vuitton finale.

It was a season of handovers, too. Anthony Vaccarello’s gold-drenched Saint Laurent show turned out to be his last, Matthieu Blazy and Jonathan Anderson each marked a year at Chanel and Dior, and Drew Henry made his Courrèges debut, one of just two designer debuts on a 68-show schedule. Here’s what happened at the shows that mattered, and who was in the room.

Matières Fécales: Rihanna Closes Night One

Steven Raj Bhaskaran and Hannah Rose Dalton gave Place de la République, a square better known for rallies than runways, its first Paris Fashion Week show. Their collection, “The Ninety Nine Percent,” answered last season’s “One Percent” and was cast with 99 models of color, many of them the designers’ own family, friends and collaborators. It ran in three chapters, FAMILY, TRIBE and GODS, and ended with models circling the square’s statue with lifelike billionaire figures on their backs.

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“We spoke for a lot of people who don’t have a voice in this arena, in this city, in this environment,” Bhaskaran told Hypebae backstage. In the front row, Rihanna wore the suit with a sheer black Savage x Fenty bra, a thick gold choker and the label’s steeply slanted pumps made with Christian Louboutin, and sat next to Michèle Lamy and Rick Owens.

Dior: Rosalía, Jisoo and EJAE by the Water

Jonathan Anderson built his runway over the Tuileries’ octagonal basin again, then filled the water with mist and a cluster of camphor trees, which Dior says will be replanted in the garden. Guests received two wénwán walnuts with their invitations, the Chinese nuts that are rolled in the hand until their surface takes on a sheen, and the 65 looks chased the same idea of beauty that comes from handling and imperfect symmetry: chiffon tailoring printed to look like tweed, pleated skirts trimmed with tulle and plenty of pale pink.

“This whole year was an arc of trying to rattle the brand,” Anderson told AnOther at a preview a few hours before the show, which came a year after his first Dior womenswear collection. Rosalía, BLACKPINK’s Jisoo (carrying a swan minaudière from the new collection before it had even walked), EJAE and IVE’s Jang Won-young sat front row with Jennifer Lawrence and Anya Taylor-Joy, and Rihanna was back in a front row a day after Matières Fécales.

Saint Laurent: ROSÉ at Vaccarello’s Gold Goodbye

On Tuesday night, Saint Laurent seated its guests under a giant gold chandelier facing a glittering Eiffel Tower, almost exactly 10 years after Anthony Vaccarello’s debut at the house. Gold covered 49 of the 59 looks, in lamé, brocade, cloqué and latex coated in gold leaf, before a closing run of black. The front row came in black too: ROSÉ, the house’s muse and global ambassador, with Zoë Kravitz, Hailey Bieber and Mark Ronson.

Then came the music. Over organ chords that The Zoe Report likened to a funeral, Charlotte Gainsbourg, a Vaccarello muse, rose from her seat and sang what sounded like an original song addressed to Saint Laurent and to Vaccarello himself, who then came out for his bow. “A light shines all the more brightly because we know it cannot be held,” he had written in the show notes. Ten days later, Kering confirmed the show was his last. Saint Laurent’s own film of the night is below.

SAINT LAURENT – Women’s Summer 27 ShowSaint Laurent · Watch on YouTube ↗

Courrèges: Drew Henry Finds the Joke

Drew Henry’s first Courrèges show, on Wednesday morning at the Palais de Tokyo, was one of only two designer debuts of the season. The South African-born designer, best known for his years with Phoebe Philo at Celine and at her own label, and most recently at Burberry, dug into the house archive from before André Courrèges’ 1964 Space Age collection. He came back with misshapen early-’60s hats by Jean Barthet and a mood board of James Baldwin, Tracy Chapman and Cher, then flipped the house’s A-line dress back to front, made it unisex and put babydoll dresses on male models.

“There’s a humor to it,” Henry told WWD of one of those hats. Of the original Courrèges, he said: “There was something quite punky about it, and I love that.”

Tom Ford: Tate McRae and Arca Face the Mirrors

Haider Ackermann’s Tom Ford was the week’s most explicit show. Mirrors lined the walls, heavy breathing was the soundtrack, and the clothes tested how little a look can be: thongs, string tanks, sheer skirts and leather bra tops for women, briefs with sweatshirts and suits over bare chests for men, and a closing swimwear section that included a male model in a thong. Tate McRae and Arca watched from the front row.

Acne Studios: Bladee and Kim Gordon Meet the New Romantics

Jonny Johansson took Acne Studios back to Adam Ant. The collection was built on the New Romantics, the late-’70s and early-’80s British scene of ruffles, cavalry jackets and historical dress-up, or as the show notes put it, “picture the New Romantics reframed for a changed reality.” Against a backdrop of carpets by the Azerbaijani artist Faig Ahmed, taffeta tops, britches and draped skirts walked alongside jeans, miniskirts and leather biker pants, mostly in muted colors. The front row read like a festival bill: Bladee, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Peggy Gou and King Princess.

Everywhere Else

Clairo sat front row at Valentino, where Alessandro Michele asked guests to donate books to Paris’s Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève. Shygirl went to Mugler and, with SZA and Jean Paul Gaultier himself, to Duran Lantink’s Gaultier show, a year into his tenure. Nia Archives was at Balenciaga, Ravyn Lenae at Balmain and Kelsea Ballerini at Stella McCartney, while Tate McRae and Peggy Gou both fit in a second show at Schiaparelli.

Chanel: Dua Lipa Under 95 Birds

A year after his first Chanel show, Matthieu Blazy hung 95 giant illuminated birds over the Grand Palais runway (W counted geese, AFP saw origami cranes) and brought back the moon from his debut. Models traced a giant infinity sign to a soundtrack of bird songs, from Saint-Saëns’s “The Swan” to the Cinematic Orchestra’s “Arrival of the Birds,” with Nicole Kidman reading from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and Britney Spears’s “Gimme More” played out the finale. Dyanira Hurbuscher opened and closed the show carrying Gabrielle Chanel’s own 2.55 bag, borrowed from the house archive.

“Ultimately, Chanel took off, and each step she took led to her being free, like a bird,” Blazy said in his show notes. Dua Lipa sat front row with Kidman, Pedro Pascal and John Malkovich, and Angèle, Honey Dijon and JT were in the room too.

Louis Vuitton: LISA and HAIM See It Out

Nicolas Ghesquière had the last word on Tuesday, Oct. 6, in the Louvre’s Cour Carrée, where models wove between retro-futuristic shuttles parked on the ground. The collection, titled “Ergonomie,” was light and built around the body: dresses of mesh and fabric as fine as cigarette paper, monogrammed aviator jackets and a grey, silver and yellow palette that reminded AFP of a landing strip. LISA and HAIM watched alongside Zendaya and Emma Stone.

“Nothing is rigid, everything is fluid, like a second skin that reveals physicality in motion,” Ghesquière wrote in his show notes. After nine days of tinsel, gold leaf and illuminated birds, Paris ended on clothes made for moving.