Interesting facts about Paris Fashion Week

Fashion Week in Paris is one of the four weeks during which the best designers and world famous fashion houses present their collections to critics and guests. So how did it all start in Paris? 

Monsieur Poiret decided to combine commercial and social tasks by organizing a series of magnificent costumed balls. The invited guests tried to surpass each other and dressed up as for the last time. One of the most famous balls took place in the summer of 1911 and went down in history under the name “1002 Nights, or Persian Celebration”. 

By the 1930s, Paris had become a center for top designers. The strict simplicity of Coco Chanel, surreal experiments of Elsa Schiaparelli, the feminine flying draperies of Madeleine Vionnet - all this was a resounding success all over the world. After the Second World War, Parisian shows became more strictly regulated, certain rules appeared. In 1945, the term “high fashion” was officially registered in France, and designers were ordered to show at least 35 daily and evening looks every season. Today, almost the same rules are preserved that apply to participants in the couture Fashion Week. 

In 1943, the first Press Week (future Fashion Week) was held in the United States, designed to distract the population from the tragedies of the war. The event provoked the rapid development of the industry. In 1947, the first collection of the Dior fashion house called Corolle attracted a huge number of members of the press, largely due to permission to shoot. Over the next few years, it was the designer who dictated what women should wear. A huge contribution to the development of the fashion industry also made Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Balmain and Jacques Fath. 

The first official Paris ready-to-wear fashion week took place in 1973 immediately after the founding of the French High Fashion Federation. It was then that the “Battle for Versailles” show that went down in history took place. This “battle” of tailor masters staged the historical struggle of Parisian and New York fashion. The fashion history owes many significant shows to Karl Lagerfeld, who revived the Chanel brand in the 1980s. The 1990s brought British designers to Paris: from John Galliano, who became creative director of Dior in 1996, to Alexander McQueen, who headed the Givenchy fashion house from 1996 to 2001.

Now Paris is certainly not the city where Poiret gave balls a century ago. But his distinctive feature is still alive - dramatization, which has not yet been surpassed.