PARIS — For the newest labels coming to Paris Fashion Week, it’s all about the long game: building their know-how, exploring materials with staying power and taking a circular approach.
All-In
Brands usually end up in fashion magazines, but they rarely start with one. For Benjamin Barron, All-In was a publication he launched as a photography student at Bard College in upstate New York. When he met designer ‘Bror August Vestbø,’ clothing came into the mix, initially as custom pieces for the publication’s photo shoots.
After a first collection shown in New York in 2019, the pair moved to Norway, where Vestbø pursued a master’s degree at the Academy of Arts in Oslo, then to Paris after the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
From the second collection onward, they brought All-In to the runway, garnering editorial attention and 11 stockists, including Ssense and H.Lorenzo.
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Their collection “muses” have included a former beauty pageant queen, debutantes and an aging pop star. An “Uptown Girl” will be the star of their 9 p.m. show on Thursday, their fifth.
“It’s about all the different facades you put on throughout a day and the idea of being constantly in transition,” Barron said. “You’re always projecting yourself into a future [with] an image that you would like to achieve but you’re never quite getting there.”
Footwear, spotted on celebrities like Rihanna, Chloë Sevigny and Kylie Jenner, will continue to be a major focus. Clothing-wise, expect a more sober textile palette and more approachable silhouettes, as Vestbø put it. There will also be the brand’s first bag and a larger selection of accessories, as well as a collaboration with Guess USA. — Lily Templeton
Luis de Javier
Since launching his brand in 2020, Luis de Javier has staged runway shows in London, New York and Los Angeles. Along the way, he’s garnered plenty of attention with his brand of flamboyant glamour, dressing celebrities such as Beyoncé, Cardi B and Rosalía.
Now the Spanish-born designer is ready to take Paris with his spicy designs, which he dubs “sex on legs,” with the aim of building a long-term business.
He’s set to make his entrance with an off-calendar show on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Espace Niemeyer. If all goes according to plan, he’ll be moving to Paris this fall from his native Barcelona.
“There was a lot to learn about myself, about the industry, about what I was bringing to the table,” the 28-year-old said. “I proved to myself that no matter where we show, people seem to like it.”
For his last show in Los Angeles, he benefited from the mentorship of Riccardo Tisci. The former creative director of Burberry and Givenchy is also providing advice for his Paris debut.
“I have such synergy with him,” de Javier said. “Whatever happens, I’ll always just cherish everything that we’ve done together.”
His spring collection is about striking a balance between runway looks, like the horned denim bustier dress worn by Julia Fox in New York, and the gender-neutral streetwear line he launched with social retail platform Emcee this year, including hoodies and booty shorts emblazoned with the word “Puta” and a handbag dubbed “The Faguette.”
“Shows are the reason that I do what I do, but I’ve also had so much fun falling in love with streetwear and ready-to-wear, which I never thought I would,” de Javier said. “I struggle way more designing a tank top than designing a dress.”
The line will be commercialized via his fledgling partnership with the business accelerator for fashion brands Tomorrow London Ltd., and signals a fresh direction for the brand.
“I just realized that you don’t need to be so in-your-face about everything,” he said. “I’m finding a new voice for me.” — Joelle Diderich
Hodakova
Ellen Hodakova Larsson is abuzz from winning the 2024 LVMH Prize for Young Designers only weeks ago, but she has her eye on the long-term prize — and her 1:30 p.m. show on Tuesday.
“I’m not here to start trends then disappear,” said the Stockholm-based designer. She wants her brand to stand for “materials, elegance and curiosity” meant to give her designs lasting power.
Her three-year-old label has netted a roster of 16 stockists such as e-tailer Ssense, as well as five Dover Street Market outposts including Paris, New York and Los Angeles.
The graduate of The Swedish School of Textiles works exclusively with upcycled products and deadstock textiles, a circular approach she hopes will be adopted by more manufacturers.
She hopes to harness new technologies to scale up. “We’re in this project where we’re developing and teaching the AI to help us predict sourcing and do a more precise sorting,” she explained.
Her spring 2025 collection will be a sort of personal diary based on the way “we [used to] capture memories through shared events — physical occasions — and how we were framing it with photography before the internet came,” Larsson said.
Expect a revisit of the Hodakova materials playbook of past seasons with new transformations as well as “romantic materials” connected to people and places dear to the designer.
Prices will start around 300 euros for shirts and 600 euros for skirts, rising to 2,500 euros for dresses. Bags will retail between 2,000 to 3,000 euros.
Larsson’s silhouettes will be paired with footwear developed with Havaianas. A long-term collaboration with Byredo will also be unveiled during the show. — L.T.
Vautrait
For Yonathan Carmel, it’s infographics that led this former graphic designer and photographer of a Tel-Aviv newspaper to fashion — and becoming a 2024 LVMH Prize for Young Designers semifinalist.
“I tried to find inspiration to make [them] proper and clear, the kind that delivers a lot of information,” he recalled. “I somehow saw a lot of fashion in the process.”
Before long, he’d enrolled in a one-year pattern-cutting course and pursued a bachelor’s in fashion before returning to Tel Aviv, where he launched the label. Vautrait owes its name to a French ancestor who’d settled in Tunisia.
Tailoring is Carmel’s specialty, a skill he developed while living in London, in particular by perusing specialized books, particularly vintage tomes filled with notes.
“I am not doing something new,” he said. “I try to unfold what has been hidden and what remains to be said. It is less about innovation and more about an intimate encounter with the craft.”
This stance on craftsmanship informs astute and rigorous tailoring but also his choice of wool as a primary fabric. The one he favors comes from a Japanese supplier that has produced its wares in a consistant way for the past 120 years.
Vautrait has caught the eye of a dozen retailers, including Galeries Lafayette, H.Lorenzo and Antonia in Milan.
For the spring 2025 collection he will present on Saturday, Carmel’s inspiration is Paris, or rather, its unique mix of crafts and know-how. There will also be the first Vautrait bags, as leatherwork is another interest of the designer’s. — L.T.
