Aliens in couture: Paris Fashion Week and why we need the absurd right now

There’s nothing quite like Paris Fashion Week to remind us that the world is both unhinged and glorious. Last week, I found myself sending photos from the shows to the Currency WhatsApp group, hand-picked purely to alarm my finance-minded colleagues. If you judged the event by what I chose, you’d think the fashion industry had fully lost the plot.

Of course, it wasn’t all bonkers. Chanel did Chanel: beautiful, poised, deeply French. Even Balenciaga, that serial provocateur, delivered something that looked more like “clothing” than a conceptual prank. But elsewhere? Paris was on another planet. Or perhaps literally spinning off into the solar system, judging by the Chanel catwalk.

Part of the reason was the fresh hands at the helm. Chanel’s new creative director, Matthieu Blazy, made his much-anticipated debut this week, stepping into the formidable shadow of Karl Lagerfeld. Balenciaga’s new head, Pierpaolo Piccioli (formerly of Valentino), also unveiled his first full collection under the brand’s banner. That kind of shake-up brings energy and volatility, with new voices trying to bend legacy houses into something that reflects the moment.

And the moment, it seems, is beautifully deranged. Rei Kawakubo sent out bulbous, unwalkable sculptures that looked suspiciously like female anatomy. Jean Paul Gaultier’s sheer naked-man bodysuits (a bit too Ed Gein, I think) made people gasp. Miu Miu gave us housecoats and aprons straight from a Russian granny’s kitchen – “a sunny day in Chernobyl before the meltdown”, if you will.

Hodakova crafted a shift mini edged with actual books, and another piece, a Currency favourite, a piece of perfect rhomboid thatch, shedding gently as the model walked. But the pièce de résistance? Thom Browne’s alien-headed models: glistening green, big-eyed, dressed in suits made from many suits. Poor, precarious extraterrestrials teetered down the runway in terrifyingly high platform heels.

What I love most about the whole thing isn’t just the clothing, it’s the audience. The front row of starlets and journos, deadpan, botoxed and important, like statues come to witness the weird. The whispered vibe: “It is art, so we must be serious.” But fashion at its best is also absurd, joyful, clever and unashamedly escapist. Crack a smile, people, that woman is wearing a lapa!

My sister insists 90s-style aliens are back. I’m rooting for the kooky, iridescent ones, not the glowstick-rave variety. It’s a useful metaphor right now: aliens from outer space or those crossing borders, from Mexico, Zimbabwe or anywhere else – let’s be kind to them. In a world lurching towards populism and fear of “the Other”, a little high-fashion weirdness is a welcome reminder.

Rebellion through beauty

I’m no fashion obsessive. I couldn’t map a brand’s seasonal evolution with scholarly rigour. But I do think this spectacle matters. It’s rebellion through beauty and imagination, an antidote to the unbearable dread of global politics, markets and doomscrolling.

I love nostalgia as much as the next person, but I think this is a sound idea. The new, the daring, the boundary-pushing is what keeps us moving forward. In a world seemingly tilting towards the conservative, and the sometimes dangerous vagaries of traditionalism, we need the creative chaos of fashion more than ever.

As Vanity Fair Italia’s editor-in-chief, Simone Marchetti, said of Gaultier’s new head, Duran Lantink: “His debut was disturbing and full of clever mistakes. Less than a breath of fresh air, it was a dose of homoeopathic good poison against nostalgia.”

And that’s it, really: the good poison. A reminder that in a grim, grinding world, some provocation, invention, and a little glamour from outer space are critical.

_{Top image: Paris Fashion Week. Picture: www.thombrowne.com.}