There are only two times a year when fashion stuns and showcases fresh trends. Fall/Winter Fashion Week occurs during late winter annually, and Spring/Summer collections surface onto the catwalk during the late summer. Fashion week, or fashion month, perhaps, occurs in major fashion capitals worldwide, such as New York, London, Milan, and Paris. While these are seen as the main events, fashion weeks in other cities occur year-round and can be labeled as pre or post-fashion weeks shows. Each defining city of the main four has its designated weeks in delivering awe-inducing displays. In February, the seventh to the fifteenth are dedicated to New York. The fifteenth to the nineteenth gives light to London, the nineteenth to the twenty-fifth represents Milan, and Paris serves the final week of February, trickling into March until the fifth. The concept of fashion week was born in Paris. Marketers had a history of hiring women to wear high-fashion items in public, anywhere from grocery stores to beauty salons. Paparazzi and journalists followed and scoped out these individuals to document striking fashionistas. When these events became more prominent in society, they evolved into social spectacles. Thus, fashion week sets a precedent for initiating the fall and spring seasons, where major transitions in fashion occurred in the transition to the intense summer and winter seasons.

The Paris Fall/Winter Fashion Week featured many predicted trend forecasts for upcoming seasons. These include thigh-high boots, baggy clothing, elaborate layering, monochrome ensembles with cutting silhouettes, and the tweed revival. From kitten-heel boots, and chunky platform boots, to prominent footwear, these styles will be prominent when the weather begins to cool down. Specifically, many collections showcased the thigh-high suede boot that was a pioneer in fashion around 2011. In the wake of the 2022 Met Gala in May, many collections featured an influence of the Gilded Age with modern influence. Denim corsets made their way into Dior and Balmain’s look-book. The deconstruction of outfits engineered the reimagination of the historical, traditional corset.

Balenciaga’s show featured a moving, rotating simulated snow-storm runway. The creative director, Demna, has almost pulled the brand’s collection out of fashion week due to the development of conflict within Ukraine. He featured Ukrainian flag t-shirts on every seat surrounding the catwalk. The director was a refugee from his native country, Georgia. Because of the resonance Demna felt in parallel to his personal experience, he wanted to shine light as commemoration for the Ukrainian people. Prior to this, the brand’s Instagram account deleted all of their posts and posted a singular photo of the Ukrainian flag. The pieces within the collection almost serve as protection in the face of the snow simulated catwalk. These looks covered models across almost their entire surface area, putting emphasis on the separate pieces as a shell. Accessories proved prominent in these ensembles, with boots encompassing legs and unstructured bags following them. Before the show’s commencement, Demna read a poem in Ukrainian by Oleksander Oles to shed light on the situation. Overall, this entire show — from the set, pieces, and overall structure stood as an undeniable forefront for resistance.

Valentino took a different approach for this season by straying away from one of the defining characteristics of their brand. Instead of the infamous Valentino red color, a monochromatic line of pink clothing made its way onto the runway. The Valentino Pink PP Collection, with the ‘PP’ standing for creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, was featured as a dual-gender collection with a few isolating black monochromatic looks as well. The collection’s name was developed in a collaboration between Valentino and Pantone, which developed and named the hue exclusively for the brand. The shade was a turnaround from the 2010s ‘millennial pink’ that made a debut in the wake of the #MeToo movement as well as on the 2019 Oscars red carpet. Pantone’s exclusive color developed from mitigating the mood of the pandemic, which was “…a go-to dopamine color pop…” (Velasquez 2022). Thus, Valentino was a stand-out show in its Ready-to-Wear 2022-2023 Fall/ Winter Collection.

After the designer and creative director’s passing, the late Virgil Abloh debuted his final Off-White Collection after elevating the brand beyond fashion week standards. Abloh’s success led him to become the men’s creative director of Louis Vuitton. Abloh’s death shocked the fashion community due to his young age, but the imprint he made on 21st-century fashion lives on forever. The final show overseen by Abloh was titled “Spaceship Earth, an “Imaginary Experience,” which commenced in two sectors. Models held white flags that wrote ‘Question Everything,’ which served as a tribute to Abloh and have been featured throughout his collections over the years. A series of celebrities and Abloh’s friends made their way onto the runway, such as rapper Kim Jones, Serena William, and Ishod Wair. The tribute show catapulted fashion farther into the future with Abloh’s final array of designs. 

From the wildfire of Miu Miu to the surrealism within Loewe’s ensembles and the ever-changing spectacle of Rick Owens, the Fall/Winter Ready-to-Wear collections are showcasing a new era. Known as the “Miu Miu Effect,” the brand has a driving force in displaying and introducing new trends that sustain the months preceding new fashion seasons. Leather, argyle, plaid, and tennis chic made their way into this past collection, sure to pop up in department stores in the next season. Snakeskin, shearling, and stained leather presented themselves through the gender-fluid expression of the brand. Loewe’s surrealist silhouettes and proportions presented their elusive nature in this upcoming season. Led and designed by Kim Jones, the collection captured the artistic vision of polarizing traditional-yet-unconventional flair. With curvy lines and seamless proportions, Jones captured the meaning of fashion as an artistic expression for Loewe’s signature imprint on fashion weeks annually.

Credited to inquisitive, out-of-the-box thinking by individual creative directors, they allow the infinite expansion of creation proving the boundaries of fashion to be limitless. Paris’s catwalks were proven to be blessed with fresh trends for the upcoming fall and winter seasons. After a pause was put on these shows for a while due to the COVID-19 pandemic, brands pulled out all of the stops and did not hold back for their comebacks across all fashion weeks from the months of February to March.