Paris is burning. The temperatures are rising, and both men’s fashion week and Haute Couture week are bringing the heat with their seasonal oddities. Fashion is no stranger to embellishment, especially couture — known for its handiwork and embroidery — but this month, I couldn’t help but notice designers’ fixation on feathery looks, elevating the humble feather from its usual boas to inventive new heights that double as armor.
The requisite feathered couture looks were present, with Ashi Studio and Stephane Rolland showing skirts bedecked in frilly ostrich feathers and Elie Saab sending out floor-length feathery cape fit for Bianca Jagger’s Studio 54 heyday. Chanel’s couture show designed by their Fashion Creation Studio had a heavy feather cape, but theirs was a bit shorter and overtly ladylike, more apt for a French baroness. Outside of the expected plumage, things got funky — and for the better.
Giambattista Valli had a fully feathered neon yellow wrap coat on a model whose skin was done up in purple alien makeup, giving the look a 22nd century feel. Schiaparelli’s breathtaking show opened with a silver “feather” cape that was not actually feathers, but 3D chrome trompe l’œil embroidery. It was not only jaw-droppingly gorgeous, but also the strongest armor shown on the runway all week.
The armor through line picked up steam in esoteric ways. Balenciaga Couture’s eye-covering, Philip Treacy-designed lampshade hats were covered in black feathers, and so were a few of the bizarre child-like butterfly eye masks. At Loewe men’s spring/summer 2025 show, creative director Jonathan Anderson sent models out with nary a piece of jewelry. The only adornment on the looks were headbands with face-shielding metallic feathers, bringing you the newest means of avoiding your ex on the street. Feathers in fashion represent lightness and camp, but in a world where our faces are scanned at every street corner and used as a form of identification to unlock our phones, pieces like those shown at Loewe and Balenciaga provide protection and anonymity while still doubling down on drama.