Courrèges, The Row and Dries Van Noten

It is hard to think of two fashion houses more diametrically opposed than Courrèges and The Row—from party-ready energy to poetic minimalism in Paris this sunny Wednesday. The contrast continued with a polished and successful display by Julian Klausner for Dries Van Noten at the Opéra Garnier.
 

Courrèges: Got to party up

Another white box, another bizarre centerpiece—this time, rising confetti—and another impressive collection by Nicolas Di Felice in another morning show for the house of Courrèges.

This season, Nicolas Di Felice’s big inspiration was an art photography book by Dan Colen titled “Moments Like This,” in which he captured around 100 images of confetti. Several of these images featured shards and oblongs of color, serving as the wellspring for this fall/winter 2024/25 collection.

The show opened with minimalist draping—long rectangles of fabric gently wrapped around the torso and shoulder—seen on many models as they walked through a rising shower of confetti.

“I call it the one-minute Courrèges,” laughed the ever-unpretentious Di Felice in a packed and celebratory backstage as guests and models swigged champagne.
 
Seen in the opening look: a three-meter black rectangle of fine wool looped around the neck, transforming into a scarf, blouse, and train.

Curling, twisting, and wrapping rectangles into stunningly shaped tops—paired with pencil pants. Continuing the idea with barely-there cocktails—long parallelograms coiled around the neck before entangling the torso and cascading to the floor.

Nicolas Di Felice paid clever homage to André Courrèges in the final look. The founder’s futurist gleaming white vinyl sheet dress from 1968 was reborn as a rolled wrap dress with a back flare, made without any sleeves, leaving the model’s arms trapped inside.

For chilly evenings, he designed razor-sharp coat dresses and bodices in the brand’s signature black plastic toile. But the heart of the show was the bold new draping—the freshest we’ve seen in many seasons—anywhere. A reminder of why Di Felice has turned Courrèges into such a hot label again. Making him the first designer to successfully revive the house founded by André Courrèges, following a half-dozen wannabe successors after the founder’s retirement in 2011.

“I wanted to recall the optimism of André and the love of a party. In tough times like today, one needs them,” he concluded.

Overall, it’s a great fashion statement, even if one feels Di Felice has reached the end of the path with his staging. Please, no more white boxes.

The Row: Poetry and poise

A moment of fashion poetry and calm at The Row, where half the guests sat on deep-pile carpets in the grand Paris mansion where the show was staged.

Light filtered onto the guests, cast from the milky blue sky outside. None of the models wore footwear as they gently drifted through a series of rooms, serenaded by the acoustic guitar and soft horns of “Abussey Junction” by Kokoroko.
 
The mood reflected the purity of the clothes—especially the super trench coats, shortened with precise panels or flowing wide and nipped at the neck with two visible buttons. 
 
Every coat looked classy yet never attention-seeking—double-face cashmere wrap coats with tuxedo lapels, lambskin greatcoats in burgundy, or soft spy coats with big lapels in black leather.

These were precisely the kind of clothes that every lady editor and buyer wanted to wear—understated but never underwhelming, and thousands of miles from noisy Instagram. Attendance at the show even came with one condition: guests were prohibited from publishing iPhone photos on social media.
 

Dries Van Noten: A day at a closed opera

Looks like this succession plan will work at Dries Van Noten, where Julian Klausner presented what was effectively his third collection for the Belgian brand.
 
Unveiled at the Opéra Garnier, the collection earned substantial applause for Dries Van Noten’s designated successor. The mood was self-confident chic, particularly in mannish tailoring that honored the house’s codes while pushing them forward—blazers and double-breasted jackets crafted from silk tie fabrics, whether polka dot or geometric.

 
The show opened with a lot of black—not traditionally a Dries color, perhaps—but still a series that worked, particularly the coats with peplums and pencil pants paired with silk scarf wrap tops.
 
Klausner also played on Dries’ ethnographic roots, incorporating snakeskin obis, cummerbunds, and Africa-style piping. He also tapped into the season’s biggest trend—faux exotic fur—with a great shearling coat in an Appaloosa print.

 
All told, this marked a significant step up from his debut, where Klausner grappled with his choice of prints and silhouettes.
 
“I liked the idea of the cast visiting the opera on a day it was closed. Or after a show, wondering what might happen,” smiled Klausner backstage. Strangely, the backstage area was the most beautiful room in the Palais Garnier, while the runway itself was held in a darkened side passage with blacked-out windows.
 
When asked to define the DNA of Dries Van Noten, Klausner responded: “What I wanted was to be free. But for me, the key to Dries is the wardrobe—that people wear the clothes, and hopefully several times, and that they bring them joy.”
 
With the Puig cousins, who own Dries and four other fashion houses, standing nearby and beaming, one imagines women will be wearing these clothes for a long time. Yet, what might matter even more to the Catalan cousins is seeing their beloved Barcelona FC win the Champions League this year—though that seems less likely.