The History of Paris Fashion Week: February 27 – March 6, 2018

From February 27 to March 6, 2018, Paris will host Fashion Week. During this event, the French capital will come alive with runway shows and be buzzing with models, designers, buyers, journalists, and fashion enthusiasts. Fashion Week aims to promote French fashion culture, where Haute Couture and creation take center stage, combining traditional craftsmanship with contemporary technologies in every circumstance. It also helps reinforce Paris’s role as the global fashion capital. The event provides an opportunity for young designers to gain recognition by organizing a showroom where their collections are presented to buyers from around the world. But do you really know the history of Fashion Week? Let’s take a step back to understand the magnitude of this unique fashion event.

What is Fashion Week?

As the name suggests, Fashion Week is a week dedicated to fashion, during which ready-to-wear brands and the most prestigious fashion houses present their collections. It is important to differentiate between Haute Couture Fashion Week, which is dedicated to the top fashion houses with criteria defined by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, and which usually showcases exceptional models created in their own ateliers, emphasizing unique craftsmanship, and Ready-to-Wear Fashion Week, where the pieces are not made-to-measure but instead have a broader distribution.

A little bit of history…

This idea of highlighting fashion dates back to the 17th century during the reign of Louis XIV, who brought the finest tailors to Versailles to dress the court in order to assert his supremacy. Paris then became the most influential city in the fashion world. In 1858, French couturier Charles Frederick Worth became the first to create designs based on his own inspirations and to launch collections. He is considered the founding father of fashion shows.
Unfortunately, the very first Fashion Week was not organized in France, but in the United States, specifically in New York. The Second World War was a flourishing time for the United States as many fashion designers exiled there to express their creativity. In 1943, Eleanor Lambert, an influential woman in the fashion world, founded New York Fashion Week.

1973: The First Parisian Fashion Week

It took more than 30 years for the first Paris Fashion Week to emerge, which then combined Haute Couture, ready-to-wear, and men’s fashion. Organized by the Fédération Française de la Couture, this inaugural Paris Fashion Week was originally intended to raise funds to restore the Palace of Versailles. Twenty years later, Paris Fashion Week moved to the Carrousel du Louvre and was inaugurated by Karl Lagerfeld during his first Haute Couture collection for Chanel. Paris became the global fashion capital, establishing itself as one of the best! After 16 years at the Louvre, Paris Fashion Week began to take place in various locations around Paris. This was a decision made by the president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Française, who felt that the image of the Carrousel du Louvre no longer aligned with the avant-garde spirit of the designers. Now, each fashion house hosts its runway shows in a setting that best reflects its collection.

And what if you too took advantage of Paris Fashion Week to entrust the Parisian event agency, Make It Happen, with organizing your pop-up showroom?