The poor and the cool: Another life at Paris Fashion Week
Seasonal week cycle The prêt-à-porter fashion ends in Paris - which is traditionally considered the capital of world fashion. Against the backdrop of New York, London and Milan, the Paris week remains the most ambitious and intense: the shows start at 9:30 in the morning and end at nine in the evening, turning into afterparty and parties that buzz before the opening of the subway. Nine days no one sleeps.
The show for the rich and street style for discharged - about this reputation keeps up with fashion weeks in recent years. In this case, street style is seriously considered as an indicator of what is in fashion now. In fact, he is a beautiful soap bubble ready to burst overnight. Before each show, everything happens in one scenario. In the morning the crowd gathers at the places where the show will take place: Chinese bloggers, little-known photographers, teenagers in copies of fashionable things from Zara and onlookers from the Tuileries garden. Crush like Bastille Day. From time to time there are shouts "Anna, Anna, Miroslav, Miroslav, Anna", greeted the guests of the show.
There will always be a couple of dozens of those who will walk alongside the phone in their hands, depicting excessive busyness - but in fact it is a half-hour call to nowhere. As the photographers say, celebrities are guilty of this. For example, Olivia Palermo was caught on a pseudo call by phone, on which the Safari main page was opened. There are those who come with personal photographers. Their task is to “start the mechanism”: if one photographer starts shooting someone, a dozen more flies to him in a second - it’s obvious that he found something that everyone can miss.
The first echelon of street-style photographers from Tommy Ton to Adam Katz Sinding always keeps aloof from the crowd. They remove guests almost a kilometer from the place of the show. None of the stars drive up directly to the show site by taxi: it is important to walk 800 meters by yourself, posing for photographers. Especially for this exit, things are rented in showrooms and shops: few people carry two wardrobes of special clothing with them on purpose (although this happens), not to mention the fact that many actually don’t have this wardrobe. Thousands of millionaire bloggers are paid thousands of euros for appearing with a certain bag - according to rumors, Kjara Ferrany’s fee starts at ten thousand euros for appearing with a particular thing.
Thanks to street-style circus, many have formed an idea of fashion as an industry for the rich and strange.
However, street style stars or people who want to become them are only one tenth. The crowd consists mainly of curious teenagers, always dressed in wide-brimmed hats and, more recently, in adidas Stan Smith sneakers. They scream and rush from side to side, taking pictures of everything, endlessly updating the tape on Instagram, as if to say: "Look, I was here, I drank honey-beer." Visitors of the shows make their way through the crowd with almost fists, fighting off with expensive bags or with the help of bodyguards. People fly with phones on celebrities, make selfies on their background. More modest just in a daze stare at the sides. There is always a moment of drama. There have been cases when a distraught crowd tried to break through the cordon of protection from the run to get to the show without an invitation.
Often, a crowd of photographers and onlookers with iPhones is extremely illegible. A girl in a satin dress on the floor and on heels with a red sole, and a flowerman with crooked teeth from a store across the road, who clearly got lost in the crowd out of curiosity, can get into the lenses. "You need to dress brightly so that you are noticed and photographed" - in the thick of people you will find a lot of tastelessly dressed characters. Slip-ons, worn on heels, hats with a pompon, fur vests and Russian fox hats, biker Cossacks and dresses to the floor are striking. And you thought, the audience of fashion week looks like in the pictures Style.com? Not at all. The sites are just a good sample made by great photographers.
At the same time, the clients of the houses invited to the show are becoming more restrained with each season, preferring monophonic coats, white sneakers, black tuxedos, overalls and simple pumps, men's shirts and wide trousers. There are, of course, Arab princesses and Chinese magnates, in whose culture there is a demonstration of luxury: they put on all the best at once. It is not surprising that thanks to this street-circus many have formed the idea of fashion as an industry for the rich and strange.
The real life of the industry takes place behind the scenes of shows, and for fashion editors - during the day in brand showrooms and at parties. Here you can look at things from new collections up close and exchange contacts, take interviews with designers. Shows and street style remain those who crave fame, and are only the outer side of the week, but not the only and main.
I am a young fashion editor from Russia and, like many, came to Paris without money and live with friends. 10 euros is my daily budget. I walk around the city on foot, and between showrooms I wrap a grocery in Marais with a banana and water. At the supermarket, I meet Natasha Modenova, executive director of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Kiev, and Ukrainian designer Anton Belinsky, the semifinalist of the LVMH Prize contest this year, on a par with Jacquemus, Marques'Almeida and Nasir Mazhar. Anton is our pride and this year the only representative of the CIS countries at a prestigious competition. Day ago, his collection was shown at the headquarters of the concern LVMH. Today, Anton is already waiting for guests in the Kiev showroom. The slogan "Poor But Cool" on things from his new collection was appreciated by everyone - from Susie Bubble to Jonathan Anderson. It must be said, this saying aptly reflects the political and economic climate in Eastern Europe, and also best describes the new movement of young people who do not need money to look cool.
Anton says: “I know, many in Russia have howled that the course has doubled. But in Ukraine, the rate has increased fourfold. Just think: four times. Going to McDonalds in Paris is like dinner in a good Kiev restaurant ". I ask Anton if you can be fashionable without money. He jokes that his bright blue sweater was bought in Kiev from his grandmother in the transition and, although the sweater is pricking, he is completely drawn to the work of Raf Simons. Our conversation eventually slips to politics, a possible default in Ukraine and the closing of borders between countries. We sigh, drink some water, leaning on the counter in the store, and look at the people running along the street. “You know, everything will be fine. I believe in this: a bright future will come. And we will all be at Elie Saab,” Anton jokes, and this is where our random interview in the supermarket ends. I look at him and think that he would have this LVMH prize come in handy. After all, the lack of money is the main problem faced by young and talented designers in all countries. Suffice it to recall the Canadian Thomas Tate, who before the contest admitted that 90% of his problems were financial. Until Thomas won the contest, he could not solve them.
Louise Alsop wears trimming of her collections, and Molly Goddard’s wardrobe is a ton of dresses from a charity shop
Young designers - this is the reverse side of the industry. They go for a week of fashion work, wait for buyers and get acquainted with the press. Their bold ideas are always the best that comes up in fashion, and then what global concerns like LVMH and Gucci Group are after are hunting for, wanting to get a young designer under his wing. In the showroom around the corner from the Ukrainians there are British brands: Marques'Almeida, Ashley Williams, Faustine Steinmetz, Molly Goddard, Ryan Lo, Louise Alsop and many others. Almost everyone also pulls their business as they can. Louise Alsop says that she actually wears trimming of her collections, and Molly Goddard says that her wardrobe is a ton of dresses from a charity shop, and black clothes and lipstick are enough to look fashionable.
At seven in the evening in Paris, parties and afterparty will start one after another. On one of them I get acquainted with Safien. He is developing the French project Carolinedaily, which should show an alternative "new Paris". Safien is working on this project from Prague. Like Charles de Gaulle, he wants to create a revolution and resistance to global luxury and corporations from abroad. His goal is to show an alternative fashion that is born in the world of young, poor and free guys, who invent and ignore globalism for themselves.
For his "subversive", as he calls it, activity, he brought two heroes from Prague, models Sasha and Saliva, to the Fashion Week in Paris. "Paris is a conservative ecosystem. Prague is fashionable, free, changeable and modern," explains Safien. For Carolinedaily, the Safien team shoots kids on the VHS camera on shows and backstage, boring presentations. Safien is sure that fashion is ruled by social networks, and here I absolutely agree with him: “We want to put it all into a network and show a strong contrast between the real energy of the young and the artificially fabricated fashion system. It will be a story of opposition from Eastern Europeans who belong to to the post-Internet generation and the conservative luxury ecosystem that we know as Paris Fashion Week. I just want to note that there are two worlds and they exist next to each other. Each has its own culture and value system. tal of old paris. The young people who are connected by the Internet and social networks have a tremendous energy and a sea of ideas. They can give a powerful response to the entire industry. We cannot deny them access to power just because they are too young or have no money We should be more attentive to them. ".
Here I remember Belinsky's T-shirts with the inscription "Poor But Cool", and my attention is switched to women eagerly snapping up champagne on high heels and in furs and men in suits. “This is old Paris,” explains Safien. The party where we speak takes place in the two-story Tom Greyhound concept store in the Marais. On the first floor, drinks are poured, and around the glasses, people filled with their own importance merge into one mass, a real rave occurs on the second: sweaty youths dance to the techno-glitch like the last time. Even at one party I see two different worlds. The clock is only ten in the evening.
On the second floor I meet a model from Canada Shelby Ferber. We spent a whole hour at the bar talking about a podcast of a Canadian producer and DJ Cyber69 with Russian roots and a programmer’s past. Today he is a sensation. Shelby is familiar with him, but I have been listening to podcasts from Vladivostok for several months already. I feel national pride and ask if anything is doing it. Between a conversation about Shelby's music, which this season opened the Yohji Yamamoto show, says that she not only bought herself a ticket to Paris: "Not only phones are taken before us to show to avoid Instagram spoilers - fees are taken from us: 20 percent - agency, 50 percent - Paris, this is a city tax. Fashion Week is a huge business for the city. It always will be so. To recapture your expenses, the same flight, you need to work out at least five decent shows. " Shelby rolls up her sleeves and throws herself into the depths of the dance floor.
With the heroine of the Safien project, model Sasha Melenchuk from Prague, I met half a year ago at a KTZ party at a club for tourists on the Champs Elysees, which that evening turned into a boiling cauldron of hip-hop and fashionable youth. This roaring youth lives by its own rules, they have their own fashion, it is free and far from sickeningly fabricated from and to street style.
Best of all are those who did not try and seemed to pick up clothes from the floor. Saliva and Sasha say that they, in general, have picked her from the floor.
After winter, we met again. Sasha's gaze detachedly slides through the crowd. A plaster is affixed to her forehead (“not to shine with acne”), and a denim jacket is buttoned at the waist like a skirt. Nearby is Saliva in torn sneakers, a transparent T-shirt, wide jeans and a long coat. We joke that the best at this event are those who did not try and as if picked up clothes from the floor. Saliva and Sasha say that they, in general, picked her up from the floor. We leave the party and go to drink wine in an apartment to Sasha and Saliva. The boys live two steps from the Marais in the apartment of grandmother Safien.
The apartment is spacious and completely empty. Instead of furniture, mountains of clothing, as in the largest vintage collapse in Europe. In the corners on the floor stand boxes with a variety of alcohol and Mexican chips. Saliva mixes agave juice with Smirnoff vodka, we fall apart on the sofa and burst the packaging with potatoes. Sasha says that they were at the Hermès presentation, where well-dressed clients at home looked at them appraisingly, with bewilderment and distrust. “We, of course, were not Kanye West, but the people at the event did not understand, judging by their appearance that, unlike them, we just understood what we were looking at. We saw sense behind things. But we were bored among boring people in patent leather shoes. "
I remember another case. In one of the old mansions showed a new collection of Y / Project. The presentation was intimate, and among the guests were editors of indie publications (i-D, Dazed Digital, Jalouse, Gray Magazine, Pitch Zine) and very small (Coeval Magazine, RITUAL PRojects, Eclectic Magazine). Almost all fashion editors looked extremely careless (it seems everyone didn’t care what they were wearing), and only one hero shone like a star in the forehead of this event. He was dressed in too thoughtfully and expensively: a snow-white coat, velvet boots with a transparent sole — and therefore resembled the stray ghost of street style.
"Do you need money to look fashionable?" - I ask. "Of course, people are driving money. You cannot create without money. Take any designer - this is impossible. Everybody needs money. Here you can deprive these heroes of the street style of money, what will you see? Waste? We are stimulated by the lack of money. It seems from the moment we arrived, we didn’t spend anything here. Generally, the main thing is to feel luxurious. Do you know why Kim Kardashian looks cool? Because even though she has a huge asshole, she is proud of her, so that she doesn’t wear it, she feels like a queen. this and the main thing: whatever ass you have so that you are on you don’t wear yourself - feel like a queen ", - Sasha flips through Instagram.
“You see, we young people are pushing fashion, and they, corporations, take it away from us. Even if we give a sheet in our hands, we know how to wind it on ourselves cool. Anything from the floor I can give a new life. This is done easy ", - Saliva shakes a home-made" screwdriver "and throws the veil over her shoulder. “Houses are guided by advanced countercultural youth who have no money. Concerns monetize their ideas, selling luxury goods in the form of goods. Then these trends echo back to the general public, hungry for fashion, but who also have no money. A vicious circle.” I share my thoughts with the guys and almost fall into a philosophical coma. However, Saliva pushes me to the side and stretches the jacket. It's time to go to the next party.
Fashion is what is not. While this is not - it is fashionable. As soon as it goes to the masses, it immediately loses its meaning.
We take stocks of drinks and fall out on the street. Winter in early March sobering all. Moving in the direction of the gay club, where there will be the after-party show Vetements, where in the morning Sasha worked as a model. “Fashion is a soul. It’s la lune,” Sasha argues, putting one hand into the pocket of his homemade skirt, the other showing the bright white moon hanging in the sky. “No matter how hard you try, if you don’t have this soul, nothing will work out. The rich are safe because they trust the houses that make up everything for them. Even if you don’t have taste and you are rich, you’ve already done everything for you, just pay. Ordinary people have completely different guidelines and means to realize less. I saw a girl yesterday. there was a skirt, short in front, long in back, very interesting. Everybody around me wears such skirts, so I also need, why are you offering me wide trousers? Here are all my friends, they wear such skirts, look at my friends. It's fashionable! My friends are the gods of fashion. " Fashion is just a word that everyone understands differently. Someone as an industry, someone as a spirit of the times, someone as an art, someone as a way to get on the front line and catch your 15 minutes of fame. Maybe it should be divided into classes: "Fashion-1", "Fashion-2", "Fashion-3" - so that each has his own?
The guys are extremely happy about this proposal. “Then I’ll be from the Fashion Zero class. Fashion is something that doesn’t exist. While it isn’t, it is fashionable. It just goes to the masses and immediately loses its meaning,” at these words, Sasha Saliva grabs her hand and drags through the queue at the club. We get to the dance floor. All the characters of the play are together again: Shelby in a black T-shirt and black jeans, and Safien in transparent glasses and sweatshirts, and even the half-naked WAD Magazine editor Jean-Paul Paula and hundreds of burning eyes around. The main thing here is music and soul, and fashion is zero.
Photo: Carolinedaily, Yulya Shadrinsky