The most talked-about collection at the spring/summer 2024 fashion shows was the one that wasn’t there. Phoebe Philo, yet to unveil the first fruits of her eponymous line, which had been originally slated to debut online in September some six years after she departed Céline, dominated the fashion news cycle throughout the month. As the spring/summer 2024 fashion trends piled up, designers waited nervously to see if their collections would be eclipsed by a spontaneous digital drop from a woman many revere as fashion’s messiah. Her cult status as industry saviour was only heightened by the news that the spring/summer 2024 show would be Sarah Burton’s last collection for Alexander McQueen, with Gabriela Hearst also departing Chloé. Incoming: Sabato de Sarno at Gucci, Peter Hawkings at Tom Ford, Peter Do at Helmut Lang, and Louise Trotter at Carven. Does fashion have a woman designer problem? At LVMH, the world’s largest luxury conglomerate, only Dior and Pucci have female creative directors, while Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo are eponymously run. At Kering, the second biggest fashion conglomerate, not a single brand is helmed by a woman, or a person of colour.
If you can coolly observe the trend for short shorts without your mind immediately replaying that ‘1957’ song by the Royal Teens (or the Homer Simpson homage), well, you’re more culturally robust than we are. Micro shorts pumped down the catwalks in Milan – most memorably opening the new-look Gucci show, now under the direction of Sabato de Sarno – and filtered into Paris, too, at Chanel, Alexander McQueen and Isabel Marant. Think of it as the logical conclusion to autumn’s no-pants predilection.
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