Now that the final shows of the Spring Summer 2016 season have wrapped, we take you on a tour of Paris Fashion Week’s most startling sets and venues, from Karl Lagerfeld’s headline-hogging airport scene inside the Grand Palais to Dior’s floral architecture in the courtyard of the Louvre.
Chanel
Chanel supremo Karl Lagerfeld left no stone unturned as he transformed the Grand Palais, built in 1900, into an airport terminal for the label’s Spring Summer 2016 show. Visitors entered through the aptly named Gate N°5, models checked in at one of 37 Chanel Airlines desks and passengers waited for flight announcements in front of a departures board – all set inside the Beaux-Arts Grand Palais.
Giambattista Valli
Away from Chanel’s airport terminal, fashion designer Giambattista Valli took his collection to the Salon d’Honneur in the west wing of the Grand Palais complex.
Dior
Thousands of blue delphiniums sprouted from a mound inside the Louvre’s quadrilateral courtyard, Cour Carrée, this week. Guests stepped inside this verdant vision – conjured by a team of 100 florists, carpenters and riggers – to find a crisp white show space. Models emerged from another mound of delphiniums in the middle.
Stella McCartney
Stella McCartney chose the gilded halls of the 19th-century Palais Garnier for her Spring Summer 2016 show.
Akris
Designer Albert Kriemler has long taken cues from architecture. For his Spring Summer 2016 collection, he teamed up with Sou Fujimoto to translate the architect’s diaphanous buildings into fabrics. Said Kriemler: ‘In Sou’s work, I recognise a desire to comprehend and create volume, space and room, to intertwine nature and construction, to work with transparency and opaqueness that rings familiar to me.’ The set, meanwhile, recalled Fujimoto’s House NA in Tokyo.
Moncler Gamme Rouge
Models weaved their way through a meadow, complete with tufts of grass and wildflowers, inside the Grand Palais for the Moncler Gamme Rouge show.
Balenciaga
A 17th-century chapel in the former Laennec hospital building played host to Alexander Wang’s swansong collection for Balenciaga. The space’s celestial arched halls – installed with reflective pools – proved a fitting setting for the fashion designer, who said he was looking for ‘purity’ in his last designs for the label.
McQueen
McQueen went back to school for its Spring Summer 2016 show, taking over Lycée Carnot’s sports hall. Gustave Eiffel – the architect behind Paris’ famous tower – designed the whole complex back in the late 19th century, and the secondary school counts former French president Jacques Chirac and the Daft Punk duo among its alumni.
Kenzo
Kenzo’s set looked plucked from a Giorgio de Chirico painting. Models were transported on plinths beneath a series of Romanesque arches, created by show producer Etienne Russo inside the Paris Event Centre.
Céline
Danish artist Thomas Poulsen, aka FOS, created a colour blocked installation for Céline, suspending sheets of ripstop nylon in orange, blue and yellow from ceiling rigging inside the Tennis Club de Paris. He also teamed up with Phoebe Philo on the soundtrack, which ‘reflected a mechanical energy, sound and rhythm to create an immersive feeling,’ said the brand.
Louis Vuitton
Stepping into Louis Vuitton’s Fondation LV show space felt akin to finding yourself in a futuristic video game, thanks to the flashing LED lights, perspex and screens. It set the scene for a high-tech collection from Nicolas Ghesquière.
Miu Miu
Skatepark-esque ramps and half pipes, wrapped in gold and silver-coloured foil, set the scene inside Palais d’Iéna’s marble and concrete space for Miu Miu’s show. The 1937 building was designed by architect Auguste Perret.
