The Fashion Olympics

What requires discipline, endurance, and thousands of hours of work? Haute couture has more in common with upper-echelon sport than you might think. Just before the world's leading athletes gathered in Paris, the city hosted its other summer games. As for the winners, PRESTIGE reports from the front row.

- MADELAINE CLARK

SCHIAPARELLI

As the Petit Palais is still under construction, Schiaparelli was forced out of its usual digs at Couture Week, this time showing in the dark basement of the Hotel Salomon de Rothschild. The change in venue also coincidentally marked a departure from Daniel Roseberry's viral-seeking fashion of lion heads and electrode alien babies. Instead, autumn 2024 felt closer to Elsa Schiaparelli's work, drawing inspiration from the 1950s, a time when the maison was flourishing under the avant-garde designer. Titled The Phoenix, the collection paid tribute to the founder's ability to shapeshift and reinvent herself, opening with a wide cape featuring wings and feathers. A duchess satin blush-pink dress featuring two contrasting shoes as breastplates referenced her surreal shoe hat, a previous collaboration with close friend Salvador Dali. A lace-up bustier dress with a hem of circular organza petals flexed the skills of the atelier, while a fur jacket made from triple organza spikes was especially stunning. A truly brilliant collection with no shortage of museum-worthy clothes—Elsa herself would have approved.

BALENCIAGA

Since his time at Vetements and now Balenciaga, Demna has been most associated with the vernacular of street style. The designer's fourth outing at Balenciaga couture, however, proved to be the most overt fusion of his personal aesthetic with the highest echelons of fashion. Challenging notions of what constitutes haute couture, Demna reimaged Cristobal Balenciaga's house codes—three-quarter-length sleeves, eccentric hats and cocoon silhouettes—in streetwear, goth, skater, and metalhead subcultures, using astonishing savoir-faire techniques that elevate familiar garments to couture status.