Parisian catwalk reflects crises of 2020

By Maria D. Valderrama

Paris, Sep 30 (efe-epa).- In an uncertain social and economic context, fashions houses on the Parisian catwalk on Wednesday reflected these issues with fewer trends and relaxed silhouettes.

“I have never started a collection with so many questions in front of me and so many mixed feelings about the present and the future,” Kenzo designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista said in an online statement after unveiling his new collection.

“Surely no one can expect linear answers to the current situation.

“The world is lost and everyone must try to find some sort of sense (and possible order) in it.”

Inspired by beekeeping, Kenzo’s collection was filled with translucent fabrics, flowing jackets and short dresses in impressionist flower patterns, combined with wide jeans and a wide-brimmed fedora hat with a veil, like the protection worn by apiarists.

Kenzo, one of the few face-to-face fashion shows this week, tried to convey a poetic and positive message, where the veil of the hat becomes a symbol of social distancing restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

“I was interested in the idea of soft protection and the other dichotomies that have arisen at this time, such as fear and optimism,” Baptista said in an interview with Vogue magazine.

“I have tried to be creative, but also pragmatic, while making sense out of the situation.”

At Gauchère, the spring-summer 2021 collection was also searching for calm and spiritual peace.