Paris fashion defies a bruised luxury industry with J.Lo, golden glamour and skimpy outfits

PARIS (AP) — Saint Laurent sent out a river of gold, as giant chandeliers bathed a glossy black outdoor runway with golden light and the Eiffel Tower shimmered in the background.

The extravagant show was attended by Catherine Deneuve, Kate Moss , Hailey Bieber and Rami Malek, while elsewhere at Paris Fashion Week Jennifer Lopez took her seat at Stella McCartney’s rain-soaked gardens. Rihanna turned out for the upstarts at the conceptual fashion house Matières Fécales, which translates as “fecal matter.”

Whatever its financial troubles — and there are many — Paris retained its ability to assemble stellar front rows and impressive staging this season.

Midway through spring-summer 2027, shows crystallized into three stories: glamour on a grand scale; a great undressing; and an industry working couture technique into T-shirts and jeans while asking itself, nervously, who all of this is for.

Last month, cosmetics giant L’Oréal overtook LVMH as France’s most valuable listed company. It's the first time since 2017 that a non-luxury company has topped the Paris bourse.

Saint Laurent’s parent Kering has returned to growth after a bruising downturn, but Balenciaga remains under pressure and Gucci is still struggling to reverse years of falling sales behind the runway gloss.

At Saint Laurent on Tuesday night, gold was almost the whole story.

Gold looked brittle, fluid, translucent or densely worked. Safari jackets and trenches came in crinkled metallic cottons. Cocktail dresses featured glinting lace, cropped jackets in brocade. Stilettos stood on serpent-shaped heels.

Then came the black finale, led by Polish supermodel Anja Rubik — a reversal of Yves Saint Laurent’s all-gold closing sequence in 1991.

Charlotte Gainsbourg stepped onto the runway to sing, adding an intimate finish to the monumental setting.

Marking a decade at the house, designer Anthony Vaccarello dispensed with his customary interviews and let the collection carry the occasion.

Its retrospective mood invited speculation about a farewell, but the show contained no announcement of a departure.

Two days later, Chloé approached excess through texture.

Chemena Kamali piled broderie anglaise with lace, pearls and tassels, and sent out rainwear and long-brimmed fishermen’s hats in vivid colours. Ruffled sleeves showed an emphatic argument for volume.

The bright outerwear interrupted the sweetness.

The question was how much decoration Chloé‘s promise of easy dressing could comfortably carry.

McCartney’s show , meanwhile, rewarded its damp audience with easy tailoring, coral-like knitted forms and airbrushed dolphins on denim.

Sculptural hems and peplums gave the clothes an underwater buoyancy, while naturalist David Attenborough’s voice supplied the ocean-conservation message.

The peplum, in fact, was one of the week’s quiet constants, turning up sculpted here and stitched into shirting at Balenciaga.

The strongest pieces connected that theme to McCartney’s familiar sporting ease: loose tailoring, drawstring details and clothes with room to move.

Across the runways, underwear was doing an increasing share of the dressing.

At Tom Ford, Haider Ackermann staged a particularly playful display: sharp tailoring accompanied by bare chests, fishnet, severely reduced swimwear and silk robes. Black swimsuits were more geometry than garment.

A male model in a sweater and pale pink thong carried a vicuña coat draped over a weekend bag.

Ackermann extended the house’s familiar sexual confidence across men’s and women’s clothes, keeping the tailoring precise enough to give all that exposure some structure.

At Balmain, Antonin Tron built a stronger second outing around midcentury backstage photographs and their air of glamorous half-dress: corset bodices, garters swinging from miniskirts, bras under shrunken satin bombers, eel skin and animal-patterned jacquards.

His references ranged from Jim Morrison to Michel Foucault’s experiments with LSD in California.

Simulated rain lashed the covered windows of Karl Lagerfeld’s former mansion.

Printing, embroidery and sequins gave the surfaces depth, though their richness sometimes competed with the sensual draping that is one of Tron’s strengths.

Even Rick Owens went boudoir, on his own terms: on a ramp across the Palais de Tokyo’s reflecting pool, he sent out stone-colored column gowns, spiked tulle, crystal-laden footwear and full-body constructions of tulle and elastic.

The question beneath it all was harder to stage: in a downturn, how does luxury justify itself?

Pierpaolo Piccioli’s answer at Balenciaga was technique.

Dense rows of stitching shaped a white shirt into a fitted waist and flaring peplum.

A T-shirt received a similar treatment. Jeans were cut on the bias — diagonally across the fabric — to change their fall.

Shown in daylight at the Tennis Club de Paris, the collection made a persuasive case for putting couture knowledge to everyday use.

Designers Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran took over Place de la République for a show titled “The 99 Percent.”

The collection brought together sari-inspired draping, shredded denim and figures styled to evoke masked demonstrators.

The finale sent out a woman in a gold lamé gown carrying two slumped dummies of white men in suits.

Public access was part of the proposition.

The irony was hard to miss: 99% of the world cannot afford Matières Fécales’ clothes.

Paris had demonstrated how to make people look, but it's the clothes, the industry hopes, that will persuade them to spend.