The artist's peplums of Dior, the unprecedented linearity of Schiaparelli, the natural grace of Valli

A week earlier than usual - due to the imminent Olympic Games - the short-lived Parisian haute couture round promises to be devoid of surprises. Valentino is skipping the season due to the recent change at the creative helm; Fendi is not showing, and so is Maison Margiela. Comme d'habitud and, it is the Schiaparelli maison that opens the dances. This time, however, the bright and bubbly spaces of the Petit Palais are replaced by a catacomb-like room, entirely lined in black velvet, in the belly of the Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, one of the city's most beautiful patrician mansions. In fact, we are in a hypogeum, and the choice of archaeological terminology, notwithstanding the dramatic effectiveness of the staging, is not accidental. Daniel Roseberry, the creative director of the greatest hits, models the couture of the august maison on a composite fantasy of different fashion pasts, mostly recent ones.

He works like an archaeologist, but with the eagerness and the unerring eye of the tomb raiders of 'La Chimera', resolutely opposed to any forced modernisation, heralding rather a certain monumentality. It is a point of view, his, which, although tending at times towards the customary, must be respected: because it is personal, authentic and, not least, because it is subject to constant evolution. This season, for example, Roseberry works on structure rather than decoration, on line rather than surrealism - shame about the bustiers made of stiletto décolleté: an unfortunate gag - and redesigns bodies to the tune of curvilinear cuts, splints, mille-feuilles, crinolines. The echoes of certain Galliano, as well as Gaultier and Azzedina Alaïa, are evident, but the stylistic intent appears authentic and passionate, and is appreciated.

Thom Browne

For Thom Browne, couture is a pure exercise in style, a self-referential celebration of an unmistakable but at times asphyxiated aesthetic that is unshakably closed in on itself. At this turn, self-referentiality is raised to the cube: the collection is inspired by the process of tailoring, and revolves entirely around the raw pattern canvas, alternating finished and unfinished in an inexhaustible series of variations on the theme. The skill and expertise of the execution are commendable, but the project is as if sealed in a mental room - Thom Browne's - that would benefit from being ventilated, because interesting evolutions could ensue.

Maria Grazia Chiuri's sentiment at Dior is diametrically opposed: to the idealisation and constriction of the female body, typical of a male creator, Chiuri opposes fluidification and liberation; to couture as monumentalisation of the trophy-woman, the creation of clothes designed to be really worn, that do not turn into living sculptures. It is the peplos that is at the heart of the collection: a reference to classical antiquity that in the year of the Olympics certainly seems didactic, not to mention that Chiuri's theme of the peplos had already been addressed in Athens in 2021.

Here, however, the atelier's skilled hands are at work, and it's a different story. Perhaps the pyrotechnic effects are lacking and the collection is on the whole repetitive, but it is also a magnificent demonstration of savoir-faire, an iridescent exploration of liquid constructions that give different corporealities. It is a proof in its own way heroic, as well: going against the tide, risking boredom, Chiuri does not play with the easy surprise, but with the lightness that brings one closer.