Fashion Month is headed to Paris for its final leg and to break down the best of the best, BAZAAR selects the top five looks from the best Spring 2016 collections.
Louis Vuitton
Fast-forward, thought-provoking, like nothing anyone else was doing. That's Nicolas Ghesquière's calling card. As the weary fashion crowd sat within the beautiful Frank Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton, the atmosphere and Spring Vuitton collection served as a pick-me-up. The clothes fit in perfectly with the masculine-feminine DNA of the building's architecture, mixing tough chic leather, stitching and grommets with cool silhouettes for the modern woman.
Valentino
For Valentino's Spring collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli went deep into their inspiration and came back with something stunningly beautiful, if not without its controversy. The design duo cited "tribal Africa" in their show notes, along with a lot of other extremely heady things, but that note against the models' cornrows ruffled more than a few feathers. There's a fine line between reference and appropriation, and in a bid to sound esoteric, perhaps they came off insensitive and perhaps they made a poor styling choice. Some could also choose to see it as a celebration of all that is beautiful in African craft.
Chanel
Now boarding Chanel Airlines Flight 01 to Anywhere You Wanna Go. For his Spring collection, Karl Lagerfeld recreated an airport terminal-as vast as it was at times confusing because of all the paparazzi and social media snappers jockeying for pictures of their favorite street style bloggers, editors and Korean pop stars...much the same way it would be if said "stars" were in an actual airport. Lagerfeld understands better than most that fashion is somewhat in a bubble. He loves the bubble, lives in it, pokes fun at and celebrates it. There's joy in that. And there's also plenty of fodder for great clothing inspiration that can translate high or low.
Saint Laurent
Kate Moss and her now famous festival wellies, the '90s, rock chicks, disco. It's all a very heady Hedi blur! Hedi Slimane's Spring Saint Laurent collection celebrated everything that is raw and glamorously undone about the rockstar set, the models who either date them or hang out with them and the stylish women who emulate that lifestyle.
Hermès
It's possible that the biggest Hermès news didn't happen on the runway today. At select Apple and Hermès stores across the globe, the two brands unveiled their newest baby-the Apple Watch Hermès collection of 10 watches for a cool $1,100. But that didn't stop Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski from showing a smart, sophisticated Spring lineup in only her second runway for the heritage label.