Paris ready-to-wear season welcomes a half-dozen new brands, as Patou ducks the runway

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Jul 25, 2019

The next French ready-to-wear season this autumn will welcome some eight new brands, three of them for its catwalk, in the nine-day calendar that starts on Monday, September 23.

 
However, the most eagerly awaited debut of the season – Guillaume Henry at the house of Patou, will not be a runway show. Instead, the brand has opted for a mere presentation. Patou is backed by the giant French luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, whose chairman and patron Bernard Arnault is known to favour major fashion statement shows.
 
The schedule, which was published by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode – French fashion’s governing body – on Thursday afternoon, stays true to the radical overhaul in major shows that occurred in the previous season in February of this year.

Among the most notable are two new entrants on the official calendar on the opening Monday evening. The season will kick off with Mame Kurogouchi, a very talented Japanese designer who has already staged two off-calendar presentations, acclaimed for their languid panache. She is followed by Kimhékim, a label designed by ex-Balenciaga staffer Kiminte Kimhékim.

 
Expect a large turnout also at the lunchtime show on Tuesday, October 1, for Kwaidan Editions, by London designers Léa Dickely and Hung La. The duo were finalists for this year’s ANDAM fashion prize, and their arrival marks another feather in the cap for France – by luring a happening London house across the channel.
 
Also joining Patou on the official presentations schedule will be Coperni, the stylish label created by Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, which they relaunched after their abrupt departure from Courrèges in 2017. Another ANDAM winner, Nicolas Lecourt Mansion, who nabbed the Creative Label Prize, will stage a presentation, as will Calvin Luo, an arrival from New York.
 
All told, a total of 77 shows are currently listed on the “provisional calendar,” though the Fédération noted that one can expect to see changes over the next several weeks, as last-minute show location decisions are taken.