Let’s call it the post fashion moment. The pandemic has forced designers to go digital and mostly show short movies. And this was not good. Now most fashion designers also think that they are mini Hollywood directors and share their vision with the same passion for the clothes. Maybe forgetting about the clothes or the whole idea why they started in the industry to begin with. Yes, the age of the global creative director requires a whole new skill set from designers but at the end of the day it’s the clothes that matter. This has been a short season but from Moncler’s bizarre one hour Alicia Keys video presentation to Marine Serre’s conceited and long winded community movie PFW opening, the clothes are far and the concept too close.

Balenciaga

Is Demna Gvasalia a communications guru or a designer? His red carpet show was a great idea but ultimately fell flat because the real fine-tuning in staging, camera movements and story telling was missing. The clothes were great, they always are but not particularly new. Black tailoring, neon colored knee-highs, crocs and so on. But don’t we hope Gvasalia returns his fascination to fashion and not video games and so on.

Givenchy

A James Turrell set, the best models in the industry, obscure comebacks of favorites like Caroline Trentini or Iselin Steiro and a whole soundtrack by Young Thug. All sounds wonderful, reminds us of Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy but the utterly misogynic point of view expressed by buttocks high second skin boots, lacy cut outs and short skirts and corsets just don’t add up for a house which is about revering the beauty of women. Matthew Williams’ big idea of adding major hardware to the exterior of garments seems to take hold and makes for a singular look. He cleverly reused the pad lock coat closure throughout the collection. One wished he wouldn’t want too much with his collection.

Balmain

Here, the idea of a festival was come up with to celebrate the creative director’s tenth anniversary at the house which he single-handedly put back on the fashion map at the tender age of 25 only. And yes, Olivier Rousteing is a fine designer who has toned down his maxi Mad Max vision to a more sophisticated beat. His gauze layer dresses looked terrific and while he shows oh so much skin, he never veers into vulgar territory. But filling an arena where his guests could barely see anything except models on a big screen felt overambitious. The fact that Beyonce was reading out a greeting to Rousteing at the beginning – We read about that in the paper the next day, the directors didn’t deem it necessary to show a photo of Beyonce when she spoke.