<\/p>\n
Designer Pharrell Williams accepts applause afte the Louis Vuitton men’s Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Tuesday, June 23, 2026.<\/p>\n
Aurelien Morissard\/AP Photo\/Aurelien Morissard<\/p>\n
A model wears a creation as part of the Louis Vuitton men’s Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Tuesday, June 23, 2026.<\/p>\n
Aurelien Morissard\/AP Photo\/Aurelien Morissard<\/p>\n
Models wear creations as part of the Issey Miyake Homme Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Thursday, June 25, 2026.<\/p>\n
Aurelien Morissard\/AP Photo\/Aurelien Morissard<\/p>\n
Models wear creations as part of the Issey Miyake Homme Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Thursday, June 25, 2026.<\/p>\n
Aurelien Morissard\/AP Photo\/Aurelien Morissard<\/p>\n
Models wear creations as part of the Dior Homme Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France, Wednesday, June 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Aurelien Morissard\/AP Photo\/Aurelien Morissard<\/p>\n
PARIS (AP) \u2014 As a historic heat wave gripped Paris this week, fashion houses tried to keep their guests cool with ice packs, mist machines and iced Evian on silver platters.<\/p>\n
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It wasn\u2019t enough: some venues still sweltered, water ran short and air conditioning was absent or inadequate.<\/p>\n
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Then they sent their models down the runway in leather, neoprene and wool.<\/p>\n
That was the contradiction at Paris Fashion Week Men\u2019s, where a heat wave turned spring-summer fashion into a test of whether luxury can dress \u2014 or act \u2014 for the warming world it claims to address.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly thought I was going to pass out,\u201d said Ben Freeman, a London-based fashion critic from Australia.<\/p>\n
Some in the front row said Paris may have to consider moving fashion week away from the height of summer if climate change keeps bringing more frequent and intense heat waves.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t know how the models did it this week in some of the leather and knit coats,\u201d said fashion student Thomas Levy, 24, outside one show.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe heat rarely seems to make it into the clothes. It shows up in the sets like at waterfalls and mist machines and ice packs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heat as a production problem<\/p>\n
Across the week, designers treated heat as a hospitality problem, a staging problem and a scheduling problem \u2014 rarely as a design problem.<\/p>\n
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Guests got ice packs, cold towels and water. Sets got waves, fog and mist. Schedules moved earlier, and punctuality became a heat precaution.<\/p>\n
Dior moved its show Wednesday from 2:30 p.m. to 9 a.m., but the heat pressed in. Water was limited, there was no air conditioning, and some guests appeared unwell.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Anderson\u2019s most elegant answer was sheer silk-chiffon tailoring \u2014 but elsewhere came heavy knits, made less for Paris in June than for a global calendar out of sync with the weather.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe calendar does not make any sense,\u201d Anderson told reporters. He cited fractured delivery cycles and a changing business, suggesting the fashion calendar no longer lines up with actual weather or with how luxury clothes are sold.<\/p>\n
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Runways out of season<\/p>\n
These are spring-summer shows, but not simply summer clothes.<\/p>\n
Luxury collections are made for global markets, staggered deliveries and customers who pass the hottest months in refrigerated air.<\/p>\n
For many, a wool coat in June is not a seasonal contradiction; it\u2019s a desired purchase.<\/p>\n
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At Saint Laurent, models walked through clouds of vapor from a Fujiko Nakaya fog installation inside the Bourse de Commerce, turning heat into atmosphere rather than escape.<\/p>\n
Anthony Vaccarello stripped his tailoring to unlined jackets and soft, pale silhouettes \u2014 light, he told reporters, for the heat \u2014 then ran the temperature back up with leather briefs, choker scarves, bare legs and transparent shoes clouded with perspiration.<\/p>\n
The result was not a surrender to summer, but a Saint Laurent version of it: cooler construction, hotter attitude.<\/p>\n
At Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams’ models emerged from a giant artificial wave onto sand. Yet the wetsuits were neoprene, the coats cashmere and fur.<\/p>\n
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Issey Miyake\u2019s IM Men offered one of the week\u2019s clearer practical answers.<\/p>\n
Its show, \u201cIn Praise of Bamboo Shadows,\u201d handed out ice packs at the door, then sent out bamboo-thread fabrics woven with organic cotton, light nylon and shadowy prints.<\/p>\n
The silhouettes moved away from the body, treating air as part of the design rather than something supplied only by the venue.<\/p>\n
At Ami, Alexandre Mattiussi said the obvious from beside an industrial fan \u2014 \u201cParis is burning\u201d \u2014 and dressed it like a Parisian living in it: loose shorts, washed trenches and \u201cI Love Paris\u201d T-shirts.<\/p>\n
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Rick Owens came closest to making heat the subject. He moved his Thursday show earlier because of the heat, then sent models through mist at the Palais de Tokyo in garments with fans whirring inside.<\/p>\n
One prominent fashion critic called the show \u201ca metaphor for climate catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n
A French fight over cooling<\/p>\n
Pascal Morand, head of France\u2019s Haute Couture and Fashion Federation, said organizers were following the French government\u2019s heat-wave plan.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe are conscious of the challenges and very attentive to preserving the Fashion Week experience in this context of structural change,\u201d he told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Fashion was not the only Paris institution straining. As the Louvre shortened its hours during the heat wave, the museum said its historic building \u201cremains vulnerable and is not sufficiently adapted to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n
That change feeds a French argument over air conditioning, still distrusted by many in much of Europe \u2014 dismissed as wasteful or unecological.<\/p>\n
Fashion week became a glamorous version of the problem facing France itself: how to keep public life, work and spectacle running in heat the country was not built for, without turning every room into an air-conditioned box.<\/p>\n
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President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s government has leaned, like much of France, toward shade, insulation and trees instead.<\/p>\n
Europe is the fastest-warming continent, its cities built of stone and short on air conditioning.<\/p>\n
\u201cParis Fashion Week is the canary in the mine,\u201d Freeman said.<\/p>\n
From sport to tourism to construction, industries built around fixed calendars and outdoor crowds are being forced to adapt to heat that comes earlier, lasts longer and climbs higher.<\/p>\n
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By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Paris Fashion Week \u2014 outdoor, fixed and watched by the world \u2014 became a visible test.<\/p>\n Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Designer Pharrell Williams accepts applause afte the Louis Vuitton men’s Spring Summer 2027 collection presented in Paris, France,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28550,27549,28553,36,73,28570,5,28549,12724,28,144,30,28552,138,146,142,143,145,17820,28551],"class_list":["post-41789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-paris","tag-alexandre-mattiussi","tag-anthony-vaccarello","tag-ben-freeman","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-europe","tag-fashion-week-paris-heat-trends-louis-vuitton","tag-france","tag-issey-miyake","tag-jonathan-anderson","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-paris","tag-pascal-morand","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31388-premium-entertainment","tag-product-32502-ap-online-europe-news","tag-product-33328-ap-premium-entertainment-other","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-rick-owens","tag-thomas-levy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}