The faux urgency, which is created, to follow live streams on the hour within the ten day long Paris Fashion Week is a little bit silly. Whether you saw Gabriela Hearst’s Chloé debut at 13h30 last Wednesday or a few hours later hardly matters. If the buzz is there – and for Chloé it was big – people will follow. But more and more big brands are falling off the schedule like Ralph Lauren in New York and they create their own competition free slot. Rumor has it Bottega Veneta is coming to Berlin in April and Michael Kors will for sure celebrate his 40^th anniversary on April 20^th with a show. Here are a few of our favorites from Paris first days and our favorite Germans.

Chloé

Gabriela Hearst immediately established ownership of this beloved French ready-to-wear house which has not been well since Clare Waight Keller left. The necessary insouciance had evaporated from the collections and they are the must foundation of any succesful Chloé collection. Taking advantage of Covid empty Paris, the debut had a dreamlike scenario where the models stepped out of Brasserie Lipp and then walked down the cobblestones on Rue Bonaparte. What a cool surprise. Hearst who made this collection about sustainability sent out Alain Ducasse chocolates with her invites for the Parisian touch but made it clear that she hails from South America with her Latino soundtrack and powerful collection. Our favorite pieces where the striped ponchos made city ready with a nylon neck. One can easily imagine Hearst riding her horse in the pampa in them.

Dries Van Noten

After a directional men’s collection where he reinterpreted the men’s shirt in all sorts of novel ways, Dries Van Noten hit pause and delivered a calm winter collection based on his signatures. Color and fabric blocked dresses, satin coats with colorful sleeves and somber tailoring. But he hit a high note with his dance video in which models and dancers from Antwerp acted out the heartbreaking reality of our Covid existences.

Gauchere

A continued improvement of the core of her basic minimalism where clever draping, volume suiting and color blocking become more and more a signature, Marie-Christine Statz unveiled her new collection in a video directed by her German stylist Sheila Single in the escalators and permanent collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou. The apple green high neck sweaters and draped tunics were wonderful eye catching surprises to Statz’s generally grey concrete canon.

Lutz Huelle

Only Lutz Huelle, one of the last survivors of the original Margiela school on the Paris schedule, could get away with a DIY T-shirt tutorial as show video. He is just so charming and seeing him explain how he actually works taking the look board from the season before as the inspiration for the new collection explains how he is a master of true wardrobe building. Using his limited resources to maximum effect, our German in Paris loves his job and as long as he is turning things upside down, we know there are people who think about a bit more than sales when they make collections.