Articles by AFP
Fashion rolls up for Dior's chic strongwoman circus
Jan 24, 2022 - Fashion
Italian designer Maria Grazia Chiuri took Christian Dior to the circus Monday with arguably her most sublimely balanced collection for the Paris haute couture label. A troupe of all-female acrobats of all body shapes led out the show inside a retro big top -- complete with harlequin-pattern floor -- built in the gardens of the Rodin Museum in...
Slimane goes super skinny in Paris Celine men's debut
Jan 21, 2019 - Fashion
Paris men's fashion week finished late Sunday with superstar designer Hedi Slimane's first menswear collection for Celine, which has up to now only dressed women. The "sultan of slim", who previously sent revenues soaring at Dior Homme and Saint Laurent, is credited with inventing the skinny look. And in Sunday night's show in a mirrored...
The world cupped: the inside story of the bra
Jan 21, 2019 - Fashion
It rarely sees the light of day but the upscale bra is the most tested, sweated over and highly engineered piece of clothing of all. AFP went behind the scenes at some of the most famous French lingerie houses to draw back the veil on the almost exclusively feminine world of bra making. No other item of clothing provokes such fierce emotions....
French say 'lingerie rocks' even in age of #MeToo
Jan 21, 2019 - Fashion
Fourteen top French lingerie labels staged a huge rock concert cum fashion show Sunday in the city which invented sexy underwear. The musical extravaganza in Paris called "Lingerie Rocks" set out to show that in the era of #MeToo lingerie "was about making women feel good about themselves". Creations by five rising young designers were also...
Dowdy no more: Men in suits storm back into style
Jan 20, 2019 - Fashion
Many had thought it as good as dead, destined for a place in fashion oblivion next to plus fours. But this week a most unexpected thing has been happening on Paris men's catwalks -- the stuffy old suit has come back. In show after show suits and tailored jackets have shaken off the toxic baggage of corporate uniformity. It wasn't supposed be...
Dior declares men's fashion future to be suited and booted
Jan 20, 2019 - Fashion
Dior set out to redefine 21th-century tailoring on Friday in a show which summed up a Paris men's fashion week in which the suit has made a surprising comeback. British-born designer Kim Jones drew inspiration from the French capital's heroic statuary to suggest that there was no better armour for the modern man than well-cut clothes. His...
French actress Deneuve to auction personal YSL clothing next week
Jan 18, 2019 - Fashion
French screen legend Catherine Deneuve's personal clothing collection designed by her friend Yves Saint Laurent will be auctioned in Paris next week. Deneuve, 75, is auctioning her clothing by the late fashion icon after selling her country home in northern France where she kept a wardrobe full of Saint Laurent items. "These are the designs of...
Michael Jackson-themed Abloh makes his bid for cool king of Paris fashion
Jan 18, 2019 - Fashion
Virgil Abloh bent the knee to Michael Jackson -- a fellow African American from the Midwest whose "prodigious talent catapulted him to unparalleled fame" -- in his Louis Vuitton show Thursday at Paris men's fashion week. The designer -- the first African American ever to lead a major Paris label -- did not make a direct comparison between...
Lingerie looks for new bottom line after #MeToo
Jan 17, 2019 - Fashion
"We haven't yet found a better way of selling knickers than a beautiful bottom," says Sarah Stagliano, one of a new breed of French lingerie designers grappling with how to make exciting underwear in the age of #MeToo. With G-strings and push-up bras losing their allure as ultra sexiness gives ways to comfort, and the whole idea of seduction...
Louis Vuitton's Abloh makes suit and tie street on Paris catwalk
Jan 17, 2019 - Fashion
Having hogged the headlines throughout the last Paris men's fashion week, Louis Vuitton's streetwear supremo Virgil Abloh attempted to repeat the trick Wednesday by giving the suit and tie a millennial makeover. Having set Instagram alight by sending out Michael Jackson-style sparkly white gloves as invitations for his Louis Vuitton show...