Paris Fashion Week: The Stories Behind Sacai, Dior, Rhude, and Casablanca's Best Runway Pieces

Following a show during Art Basel in Miami (where he debuted Dior Men’s collaborations with Stüssy and Jordan Brand), Kim Jones returned to Paris to present the Fall/Winter 2020 collection. For this season, Jones explored the house archive of 1950s haute couture. “My main inspiration for the Winter 2020-2021 men’s collection comes from Christian Dior’s work in the ‘50s, with a dash of Marc Bohan in the embroideries and prints,” he said. “It’s very couture. It’s also a tribute to [late stylist and jewelry designer] Judy Blame.”

Jones closed the show with a silver-metal feather embroidered raglan overcoat, which was inspired by a Marc Bohan dress from Fall/Winter 1969. The coat took 900 hours of hand embroiderey at the Vermont ateliers and 100 hours to assemble in the Dior ateliers. Yeah—that’s a total of 1,000 hours of work on one piece.

Albert Einstein once said: “I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.” 

Sacai designer Chitose Abe was inspired by this quote (a model walked down the runway in a black T-shirt with a photo of Einstein and these words underneath)—and the idea of intuition—for her Fall/Winter 2020 collection, which she presented Saturday during Paris Fashion Week. “I was reminded of how intuition is so important in creating something new,” she said backstage after the show. When she designs, she said, it’s more of a gut feeling. When she knows, she knows. “If you ask me how that came about, that was my intuition.” 

A true innovator, Abe’s work has always been rooted in “hybrid splicing”—the marriage of two separate and often contrasting ideas or garments to create something entirely new. That signature style appears throughout the Fall/Winter 2020 collection, whose foundation is the pantsuit re-imagined through Abe’s eyes, with the addition of military outerwear details. There was an MA-1 jacket placed over a wool topcoat; a dress that was part pencil skirt, part denim jacket; a down jacket and wool blazer deconstructed to be made as one; and more. Abe also previewed three new colorways of her new Nike collaboration—a cross-breed of the Pegasus and Vaporfly—with double laces, tongues, and Swoosh branding. 

One of the highlights in the collection is this leopard print Chesterfield coat that’s been combined with an M-65 military jacket. The fabric was developed specifically for the collection (as many of Abe’s fabrics are) and the idea for this, Abe said, was to “mix military pieces with something elegant.”—Karizza Sanchez

Abe also collaborated with tattoo artist Dr. Woo, who she previously worked with for Spring/Summer 2019, on a few pieces, including a jacket that’s part peacoat, part MA-1, and part N-3B. Instead of using one of his tattoo designs, Dr. Woo created a rendition of a bandana print for Abe, a favorite of the designer. “It's a different graphic textile, based off of a bandana,” Dr. Woo explained. “We used textiles printed with the art that were sewn onto different parts of the garment, but also just printed the graphics all over. So it has this familiar bandana print, but also not. If you look closely the print is very distinctive and specific to me and Sacai.”  

 “The coolest thing about working with Sacai is the creative freedom,” he added. “There’s no borders. It’s just like, ‘Hey, this is our idea. Let’s see what you can do.’ And I’ll turn in something and there’s rarely any back and forth. They’re always super gracious. Once it goes into Chitose’s hands I don’t even worry about it because I know it’s going to be insane and I know it’s always going to be better than what I expected.”—Karizza Sanchez

A trip to Lake Garda in the North of Italy was the starting point for Charaf Tajer when designing Casablanca's Fall 2020 men's collection, which debuted last week at the Intercontinental Paris. While visiting Lake Garda he saw a Dalmatian, which came up in several iterations throughout the collection— a cashmere sweater featuring a dalmatian and printed with Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate who married Jackie Kennedy shortly after President John F. Kennedy was murdered, walking a dalmatian on a leash opened the show.

"I thought the dalmatian was the perfect companion for Aristotle Onassis, who is the Casablanca man," said Tajer. "For me he's like one of the most iconic characters of the 20th Century and I think people don't really know him enough, so I decided to put him in the collection."

Casablanca is known for its silk shirt and pant sets that look like pajamas but are meant to be worn outside—they have a relaxed, yet tailored fit. Tajer sources the silk from Leon, France, a major manufacturing city known for its silks, and covers the sets in original prints that have been painted two full-time, in-house painters.

Another Casablanca man is Westside Gunn, who name checked the brand in one of his songs and wore the Dalmation x Aristotle Onassis shirt to the show. Tajer said they met through friends and when he heard he was coming to Paris, invited him to the show.

"I find it very cool because Jackie Onassis was representing a certain openness and Westside is another form of that. Not in the same way, but I find it interesting that he's wearing something like that," said Tajer. "I find the contrast very interesting."—Aria Hughes

Rhude, which is designed by Rhuigi Villaseñor, is known for its graphics and elevated sportswear like the traxedo pant. But for the Fall/Winter 2020 collection, which debuted in Paris earlier this week, Villaseñor said he wanted to make his pieces even more luxurious, and he did. 

One of those "hero" pieces, the term we are using to describe the best items from a collection, is the hunter green shearling pullover, which sits nicely between where Villaseñor is and where he wants to go. 

"I wanted to create the ultimate quarter zip sweater so that you wouldn't need anything else," said Villaseñor. "It's luxury meets athletic. It has a wide oversized cut. It's easy to put on, but it's raw."

It was made in Los Angeles, but constructed with shearling sourced in Italy. From a distance, it almost has the appearance of fleece, which has been trending for the past couple seasons whether it's from heritage brands like Patagonia, or more fashion leaning ones like Sandy Liang and Engineered Garments who collabed with Uniqlo on a popular style. 

Instead of sewing pieces of shearling together, Villaseñor said it was made with a new heat binding process, which he opted to use because he wanted to go all the way luxury, and because of that, along with the Italian fabrication, the item is set to retail for around $2,000 when it hits stores in a few months.

It's an evolution for  Villaseñor, who took a risk by not presenting the interesting graphics that he's known for, but he said buyers have gravitated towards the item. 

"They loved the piece," said Villaseñor. "I think all of the buyers are going towards the runway pieces and I'm kind of shocked."—Aria Hughes