At Paris Fashion Week this season, Andreas Kronthaler honoured his late wife in his first Vivienne Westwood show since she passed
The end of the AW23 season is near – congratulations to everyone who has made it this far. Paris is the last stop of the tour, and it was the setting for a highly anticipated and poignant moment in the calendar: Andreas Kronthaler staging his first Vivienne Westwood show since his wife passed away in December.
The collection was a tribute to Westwood, honouring her life and work and referencing her vast archive. Trademark items like petticoats and platforms featured heavily and fabrics collected by Westwood and Kronthaler over the years were used to craft the looks. Cora Corré, Westwood’s granddaughter, closed the show in a white lace bodice and platform heels, clutching a small posy of white flowers.
When it came to beauty, Isamaya Ffrench honoured the late designer quite literally – recreating exact make-up looks Westwood had done on herself over the years, applied in the same way she did it. Known for her charmingly dishevelled make-up, Westwood’s looks tended to feature wonky colourful liner around her eyes and across her face, unusual shades of lipstick and messy eyeshadow. All that was present on the runway, as models walked with green eyeliner across the lids, dual blue and red lips, and drawn-on gold brows. There was also pencilled in moustaches recalling Westwood’s 2012 climate protest look. All created with Ffrench’s own products. On hair, Charlie le Mindu created a series of looks, most notably Westwood’s signature short, spiky style from the early King’s Road days.
Elsewhere in Paris, it was all about lashes but not like you’re used to. We’ve seen alternative lashes throughout the AW23 season and before. During the Couture shows, Doja Cat stepped out at Viktor & Rolf with five pairs of false lashes stuck to her face, including as eyebrows, a beard and a lash-stache – a response to the (wrong) criticism she received for not wearing lashes as part of her red crystal look at Schiaparelli.
Then in Milan, we saw pastel-tinted lashes at Prada and Sunnei for what Prada make-up artist Pat McGrath called a “subversive yet angelic twist”. The look carried through to Paris, where Victoria Beckham make-up artist Fara Homidi coated the bottom lashes in pastel shades of pink and yellow with the brand’s new eyeshadow sticks to create an upside-down winged liner look. At Givenchy, models wore their lashes in spiky clumps creating an almost horned-like effect courtesy of Ffrench. Meanwhile, at Kiko Kostadinov, Cécile Paravina gave models four long, spidery lashes in black and white stripes.
Outside of the lashes, we saw (what will forever now be known as) Julie Fox eyes at Rick Owens. Make-up artist Daniel Sallstrom piled on the black eyeshadow thick around the eyes for a rounded graphic look that was finished off with blacked-out contact lenses. Meanwhile, Duffy created stiff, sculptural ponytails that framed the heads of the models like a halo. The headpieces at Comme des Garçon absolutely towered up into the heavens. Once again created by Valeriane Venance, the “hats” were constructed from multi-coloured pipe cleaners, mixed paper and fabric scraps, fake flowers and distorted petals crafted out of plastic bin bags.
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