After a festive, sparkling week-end, it is back to normal on Monday, as the designers seem to be telling us. During this intense Paris Fashion Week for the Fall/Winter 2024-25 women’s ready-to-wear collections, many designers have underlined the importance of going back to a more practical, easy-to-wear fashion, without however neglecting creativity and a light touch. As was notably demonstrated on Monday on the runways with Marine Serre, Lutz Huelle and Zimmermann.

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Marine Serre pulled out all the stops, taking her entire world to Ground Control, a renowned hotspot of the Parisian alternative scene, in the 12th arrondissement. She applied a humorous personal touch to the venue, transforming the vast hall into a Marine Serre-branded covered market featuring the Bar de la Marine, a PiSerreia, the Café de Serre, which welcomed guests with a cup of tea on a terrace, a florist offering a complimentary bouquet, and more.

In this convivial atmosphere, the models, selected at a street casting, emerged out of a cloud of mist with a smiling, insouciant air, as though out for a stroll with friends. One of them had an infant in a baby carrier, others held a newspaper or a paper bag, or trailed a shopping trolley or tote bag filled with groceries.

“I wanted people to connect with each other. When you go shopping at the market, you have the leisure for a stroll, a bite to eat, for people-watching, and you take time over your look. The everyday is part of life, each day is the everyday. What’s most important is feeling this happiness day by day,” said Serre backstage. In recent seasons, the designer has decidedly distanced herself from the dystopian atmosphere that characterised her early shows. She now prefers to celebrate love and joy, “bringing beauty to ordinary life.”

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Some models walked out holding objects like a cardboard beaker, a pizza box or a record sleeve featuring the designer’s portrait in black and white, as it appeared on the tribute t-shirt distributed at her last show, entitled Heartbeat. Not to mention the now-legendary baguette, this season’s star ‘accessory’, seen also at Moschino and Undercover.

“I wanted women to feel at ease in their clothes, while also feeling beautiful and powerful. So I think that clothes must be comfortable and easy to wear. Today’s women must be able to do anything, like going cycling in a flesh-coloured transparent jersey dress,” said Serre. Her collection, veined with a chic, bourgeois streak, was aimed at a broad audience, with suits, cardigans and jacket-and-skirt sets, plus a few evening dresses, like the sheath dress with large wings in moiré fabric.
 
Serre’s colourful, patchwork looks made with recycled garments featured as always, though there were fewer of them, since the designer has focused on a more linear, geometric style, using regenerated fibres to create proprietary fabrics. The label’s highly recognisable half-moon logo cropped up throughout the collection, on clothes, accessories and even a few gadgets. It featured all-over on jersey outfits, like the skin-tight jumpsuit and dresses, it was printed on leather and denim items like the thigh-high boots, maxi coats and oversize jackets, and it was embroidered on sheer tulle fabrics.

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Lutz Huelle was back on the runway after the pandemic, and he couldn’t hide his delight. AZ Factory, the label owned by the Richemont group with which Huelle has been collaborating for a year and a half, offered him its slot on the Paris Fashion Week calendar, and a budget to boot. “I’m all the happier because it was unforeseen. For an independent label like mine, it was a real boon,” said backstage the German designer, who has created a fresh, clever collection.
 
Huelle showed a medley of two-in-one clothes at once attractive and easy to wear, brimming with details and little tweaks in unexpected places which added surprising twists to the collection. A blouse’s black lace trim matched a lace band fitted around the trousers’ waist, like an elegant belt that gave an original touch to the silhouette. Elsewhere, pleats like those of a dinner jacket’s shirt, but horizontal rather than vertical, extended to the shoulders and sleeves of dresses and tops, or were arrayed on fine, colourful trench coats.
 
A pleated shirt morphed into a small black dress, glamorous giant ruffles in silk duchess trimmed an austere men’s jacket, and blue and mauve sequins created a gilet effect on a white shirt-dress. A band of glossy gold on the top edge of a skirt or of a pleated corset dress added a touch of light to the look. As did the little crystals scattered like brooches on the models’ faces and necks and on some of the clothes.

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Huelle has adroitly blended classic womenswear items (superb bathrobe-coats, checked trousers, a straight skirt with frontal slit, an impeccably cut black dress) with more creative hybrid items, introducing denim inserts in pinstripe trousers, in a trench coat, a short black dress and a rainproof jacket. And incorporating panels of Prince of Wales fabric in a poplin shirt-dress.
 
“They are all simple ideas, there’s nothing forced. They are all wardrobe essentials that have been reinterpreted, re-jigged. It was an easy collection to design, each idea leading to another. I felt very inspired,” said a radiant Huelle, for whom business is buoyant. His label is distributed via 60-70 retailers worldwide, and is thriving notably in Japan.
 

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Zimmermann too hovered between the chic and the practical. The Australian label showed at the Cambon Pavilion on Monday. It was the ideal venue, with its dramatic red-carpeted staircase with wrought-iron balustrade, to host Zimmermann’s glam, romantic collection, which however included several urban, everyday outfits. The label showed a rich wardrobe ranging from voluminous evening dresses to more casual items in denim.
  
Lace, Australian designer Nicky Zimmermann’s real passion, featured extensively of course. It was used in long trained gowns, chic corset dresses and petticoats, while rare silk was the fabric of choice for the frilled dresses and the pussy-bow blouses with puff sleeves. But the collection also went down a more practical road, with everyday clothes worn with wool socks and comfortable lace-up shoes.
 
Zimmermann’s wardrobe for next winter includes washed denim ensembles, shorts suits in Prince of Wales checks, casual marled wool suits with large pockets and stud buttons, leather tops and maxi skirts, and open-work knitted dresses. The look that best summed up Zimmermann’s new urban mood consisted of a pair of satin joggers worn with a bustier top, under a two-tone faux fur coat.