Paris (AP) – Light flowed through the stained glass of a French laboratory towards a surreal stage: a lonely cellist playing a melancholy air next to an upside down umbrella and a rotating tableau of dying sunflowers. It was the overture of the theatre on Saturday Paris Fashion Week. This was spring – Vivienne Westwood style.
Andreas Kronsaler, who led the house since Westwood’s death in 2022 and joined the label in 2016, leaned wildly towards Madat Energy, which made the brand a legend. Leopard print boys’ underwear was sitting with a thin ribbed tunic in the medieval air. The punk flashed with a jeweled veil and sparkly lapel. The model walked in floppy ’70s boots that turned the epic academic setting into a carnival.
The lineup includes a collection of dresses with a westwood drape and disassembled silhouette, double skirts, and a balanced cut. The colours intentionally collide, sour green turns red, eyes adjust and chaos ordered. A necklace covered in one gemstone literally created “chaos.”
Westwood made her name on King’s Road in the 1970s, tearing tartan, corsetry measurements and tee into punk grammar. That outsider’s spirit still drives the house, even when its reach is mainstream. Since Sarah Jessica Parker’s iconic Westwood bridal gown Sex and the citythe label’s wedding business is booming. It’s a point where hundreds of loud fans ramble through France on Saturday to get a glimpse.
Kronthaler has long thrived by turning bourgeois classics over and over. The jacket is distorted, the Cors measurements are loaded into the knit, and the tartan is twisted into panchromatic. That maximalist impulse can overturn it, but it is also the lifeline of the house, keeping Westwood’s language resilient rather than preservatives.
Much of Westwood’s powers have historically come from mining and archive mutations – Corset Legacy of the 80s, Napoleon Swager, Shakespeare dramas. Since Westwood’s death, Kronsalah has moved from a cautious custodian to a provocateur, forged a new hybrid rather than simply citing the past. Saturday’s show saw Shift: Historic tunic, technical fabric and second skin underwear collided in design, not accidents.
The finale gave the collection a human punch. Heidi Klum We closed the runway to cheer loudly. Kronthaler had to take out a bouquet of sunflowers and place it on the floor before handing over.
If the collection lacked order, it was not lacking confidence. Few labels transform visual inconsistencies into persuasive beauty. Westwood was still under stained glass and under its sparkling necklace.
