Paris Fashion Week kicks off with big designer debuts expected
PARIS
Paris Women's Fashion Week kicked off on Feb. 3 with young new labels dominating the catwalks before a trio of hotly awaited designer debuts at Givenchy, Dries Van Noten and Tom Ford in the coming days.
The opening of the world's biggest fashion week also saw demonstrations from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) charity and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation to demand the industry stop using animal hides.
Dressed in fake prehistoric fur outfits, five PETA activists held up placards reading "Leave The Stone Age" in front of the French Fashion Institute, while the Brigitte Bardot Foundation sent billboards on trucks denouncing the use of animals for fashion around the City of Light.
Fur and sheepskin jackets are back in fashion, with experts like Simon Longland, director of fashion buying at Harrods in London, saying the shearling coat is "set to be the ultimate wardrobe investment" for Fall-Winter 2025.
"We're here to demand that Paris joins London, Copenhagen and Amsterdam too in banning the use of fur on their catwalks," PETA spokeswoman Natasha Garnier said.
On the runways, France's Victor Weinsanto, Japanese label CFCL and New York's Vaquera held their shows Monday before the bigger corporate luxury jugganauts unveil their Fall-Winter collections later this week.
Japanese designer Yusuke Takahashi, who founded CFCL (Clothing For Contemporary Life) just under five years ago, sent out models in knitwear outfits in primary colors, inspired partly by furniture from the 1980s.
There was no fur or animal hide in sight, with Takahashi making elaborate use of his favorite material, recycled polyester, which was used for 90 percent of the collection.
"We really focused on knit technology and making new products," he told reporters afterwards.
Victor Weinsanto, an up-and-coming designer from eastern France, stressed that he only used fake leather and fur in his collection in mostly neutral wintery colours of white, beige and black, with a splash of 1980s-style shade of purple.
Over the next eight days, more than 100 fashion houses will unveil their Fall-Winter 2025-2026 collections, hoping to rally sales in what is an increasingly difficult global luxury market.
