After approximately 3,478 days and 10,894 shows, the SS24 womenswear season drew to a close yesterday in Paris. With the luxury fashion market hit hard by the same economic instability we’re all facing right now, the whole thing played out as an ode to Really Nice Clothes. There was loads[!] of stuff you’d really want to buy, but perhaps less of a focus on the avant-garde – the kind of stuff that makes you dream. 

That’s not to say it was anywhere close to boring, though. In fact, this return to craftsmanship and construction felt like a welcome relief after years of dedication to meme-worthy fashion and show gimmicks designed to set TikTok on fire. Plus, it allowed the good collections to really shine: the best of which we’ve rounded up here for you. 

With Maison Margiela’s emotional tearjerker of a show, Saint Laurent’s sojourn to the desert, Comme des Garçons and Rick Owens’ odes to joy - as well as knockout offerings from Y/Project and Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood – all on the list, scroll down for the cream of the crop. 

SAINT LAURENT

Saint Laurent’s hot as hell boss bitches were back this season, only this time around, they’d stepped out of the boardroom – and off their employees’ necks – and taken flight to the desert for SS24. 

In an uber-luxe new space flanked by big marble columns and gold YSL sculptures – but still backdropped as always by the golden glow of the Eiffel Tower – guests including Zoe Kravitz, Gabbriette, Steve Lacy, and Saint Laurent campaign star Austin Butler assembled on the front row to take in exactly what Anthony Vaccarello had been working on the last six months: and what a collection it was. 

Stripping off those mega power-shouldered blazers from AW23, models stepped out in safari-style jumpsuits, sheer chiffon shirts peppered with pockets, slinky racer-back silk slips, slouchy wide-leg trouser, and hefty trenches with tightly nipped-in waists, all in a palette of earthy, almost dusty tones: think rich burgundy, deep sand, and sleek, chic, ivory. Earlobes swung with huge gold doorknocker earrings that grazed the collarbone, while necks and wrists were stacked with glittering bangles and chains. 

Perhaps best of all, though, was the absolutely trowelled-on 80s-style make-up, with the models’ cheeks carved out via extreme, powdery contouring, complexions pumped up with smeared-on flashes of rouge, and clumpy eyelashes all on the agenda. Is the clean girl era coming to an end? Right now, it’s Saint Laurent’s world and we’re just living in it, so yes, it looks like it. (ED) 

UNDERCOVER

We’ll start this one off with a disclaimer: it probably wasn’t Jun Takahashi’s best idea to use live butterflies as part of his SS24 Undercover show, with animal rights protestors criticising the move across social media in the hours following the show. 

But the collection was undeniably one of the most magical and creative of the whole season – particularly when so many designers are opting for functionality and commerciality over anything particularly avant-garde right now [plus, the butterflies were released post-show, and so are probably out there living their best little lives as former Undercover models as we speak]. 

Covering terrariums with layers of diaphanous tulle and lighting them up with LED strips, the designer’s glowing orbs were transformed into cocktail dresses and floated dreamlike through the darkened showspace – the garments, according to, to Takahashi, represented the flow of a fading memory, “a surreal world appearing and disappearing in the dark”. 

Elsewhere throughout the offering, the surreal artworks of Neo Rauch were transformed into tapestry tailoring, Takahashi’s own paintings became tactile tufted tank tops and wiggle skirts, and pieces came studded with hand-sewn golden spiders. A real standout for SS24, made even better when the live creatures were swapped out for fake ones at the post-show re-see. (ED)

GIVENCHY 

Matthew Williams further cemented his recent winning streak this season as he leaned into a more sexy, sophisticated elegance than he’s previously been known for at Givenchy. Moving away from the hardcore, heavy-duty hardware we’re more accustomed to seeing him turn out, this season was unabashedly romantic, as he channelled his surprising love of gardening – a passion shared by Monsieur Hubert Givenchy himself – into a collection littered with appliquéd and embellished blooms. 

Balanced out with precision-cut tailoring, like oversized car coats with wide, cocoon-y shoulders and boxy blazers, out came a succession of wiggle dresses and pencil skirts which sandwiched flowers between their many layers, in a delicate palette of pale yellow and duck egg blue. But don’t think Williams has gone soft: the designer amped up the sex with the accoutrements, with slick, sensual stockings and pop-socks stretched over sharp pointed stilettos and coquettish mules. 

At the end of the show, out came a series of gothic cocktail and wedding gowns paired with romantic black lace veils and trimmed with strings of glittering crystals. Underpinned by Williams’ proclivity for clean, contemporary cuts and dark glamour, while channelling the established codes of the house, perhaps for the first time ever during his tenure at the house the designer and Hubert’s vision aligned in near-perfect unison. (ED)

RICK OWENS 

There’s an incredible set of photos by Martin Parr, in which the photographer headed up to the North of England and landed at Whitby’s biannual celebration of all things goth – named, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Whitby Goth Weekend. 

The images spectacularly capture attendees dressed up as witches, werewolves, and vampires – this being the home of Dracula after all – doing all the joyful things we love to do at the seaside, like scarf down fish, chips, and mushy peas, furiously poke pennies into the arcade slot machines, and treat ourselves to ice creams and big puffs of cotton candy. It's particularly fun because it further hammers home the age old truth: that goths are perhaps the happiest people of us all, despite their gloomy garb and penchant for the darkness.

Watching Rick Owens’ SS24 during Paris Fashion Week felt a bit like another chapter in Parr’s series. The subversive designer and ultimate Dazed fave basically threw a big goth birthday party this season, sending his darkly dressed models out onto the Palais De Tokyo terrace through bright, billowing plumes of Battenberg-pink and yellow smoke and swirling rose petals which scattered across the runway like confetti. 

At his menswear show in June, Owens revealed that, despite all the things wrong with the world, he was committed to seeking out joy, and his womenswear collection felt like an extension of that, with big, horn-shouldered jackets and coats that swept along the paving stones, hardcore leather jackets, and cocooning ‘doughnut’ gowns padding and protecting their wearer against the realities of climate crisis, economic chaos, and social injustice and wrapping them up in a full-on fashion fantasy. 

Owens’ shows are always a standout of the season, but this one probably beat them all with the succession of heart-stoppingly beautiful sculptural looks, complete with face-obscuring veils, which closed out the offering. Last season the designer wanted only for us to be happy. This season he was the reason we were. (ED)

COMME DES GARÇONS

“To break free of this gloomy present, I hope to present a bright and light future,” wrote Rei Kawakubo in her show notes this season, which is a lot more than her usual handful of disparate words. The designer echoed Rick Owens' sentiment for SS24, sending out a big, bolshy, beautiful collection which wrapped models up like bulging birthday presents strewn with garish bows. 

Wobbling down the catwalk in blown up orb-like dresses, each look was embellished to within an inch of its life, with glittering, gaudy coloured crystals and gemstones, puffy, fluffy pom-poms, and found objects, each one bigger than the last – a medidation on contemporary womanhood, Rei's cast was unafraid to take up space.

There was a sense of childlike wonder to the offering, but don’t think it was all sweetness and light: an unsettling score of guttural wails and screeches soundtracked the show, and just when everyone thought it was over, and the catwalk descended into pitch black darkness and out came the models again. 

Huddled into a circle, whispering like a coven of witches while neon lights danced over their clothes, it was as if they were performing an incantation of protection to keep out the evils of the wider world. (ED)

Y/PROJECT 

It’s testament to how wildly talented Glenn Martens is that the Belgian designer continues to turn out such stellar collections at not just one house, but two season after season. Seriously: how does he find the time? Just a week or so after his mega Diesel rave in Milan – which countless showgoers braved despite torrential downpours – Martens was back to showcase his SS24 Y/Project offering, and, unsurprisingly, it didn’t disappoint. 

In the same dilapidated space as he chose for last season’s outing, complete with death trap stairs and dusty walls that coated every luxury garment that brushed up against them – not that anyone really minded – Martens debuted yet more of his twisted, fucked up denim, in the form of hulking windbreakers and floor-length trenches, asymmetric skirts with super-slutty slits that sliced right up the leg and flashed a glimpse of matching panties, and signature wide-legged XXL jeans. 

Also on the menu this season were tantalisingly torn silk slips and second-skin dresses that looked like they’d been flashed over with a neon light, as well as a subtle nod in Maison Margiela’s direction via photocopied lace details on slouchy tees and long-sleeved tops, which were layered under calf-length, lingerie-esque sheathes. Finishing things off were aa series of snake necklaces, which wound around the neck of their wearer – part Britney at the VMAs, part Garden of Eden. Martens is a designer who is truly tapped into what his customer wants, and honestly, this season, we wanted it all. (ED)

MAISON MARGIELA 

This season saw most houses strip things way back, and if not further lean into the ‘quiet luxury’ kind of mood rife at the moment, then at least send reined-in, commercially viable collections traipsing down catwalks – the overarching trend of SS24 was Really Nice Clothes, which is great, but it did leave us wanting to feel something, you know? 

Trust John Galliano to come up with the good stuff in that regard, then. The Maison Margiela maestro almost reduced a huge swathe of editors to tears [not least because they almost missed the show due to a mega late-running Mugler extravaganza] with his emotional, richly romantic offering for the season, which expanded further on his Cinema Inferno odyssey charting the adventures of star-crossed lovers Count and Hen. 

This time, Galliano looked back to when his protagonists were just a twinkle in their parents’ eyes, and explored the idea of hand-me-down clothes and the ways in which they evolve – the rite of passage act in which teens raid their mum and dad’s wardrobes and find fresh, new, and imaginative ways of wearing the pieces that they pillage. 

Beginning with sombre, romantic tailoring, like oversized pea coats, big, blousy britches and bunched up shorts, as well as crisp white shirting bearing double collars and further flamboyant finishing touches, later a succession of strutting Margiela cyber girls and boys followed, their laminated, 50s-style cocktail dresses ripped apart at the seams to show the inner-workings of each garment, futuristic sunglasses perched on their noses. 

Perhaps best of all, though, were the little black dresses which closed the show, dramatically shown off through their wearers’ wiggling couture gestures – hands firmly gripped to hips, gazing confrontationally at members of the audience, the theatricality of it all a much-needed and refreshing moment in a sea of shows designed specifically just to sell clothes. (ED)

KIKO KOSTADINOV 

Kicking off the final day of Paris Fashion Week, Laura and Deanna Fanning – the twin sisters in charge of British-Bulgarian label Kiko Kostadinov’s womenswear line – invited the fashion crowd into the Palais de Tokyo museum for its colourful, cool-girl SS24 offering. Early on in their design process, the twins stumbled upon a photo of a satin and velvet patchwork dress by French artist Sonia Delaunay, resulting in an offering shaped by fabrics of clashing textures and colours, all stitched together and draped to form kaleidoscopic shapes across the body.

More specifically, this meant multi-coloured fur jackets protruding with hairs and tied-up like slouchy dressing gowns, striped bardot tops with extra sleeves poking out from the hemlines, criss-crossing ruched tops paired with zip-off cargo trousers, and numerous slinky, draped looks which caught the light and blew backwards as models walked to form new silhouettes at every angle. Together, the wide-ranging techniques paid homage to women’s contributions throughout fashion history – stripes brought to light by Delaunay, patchwork from Adeline André, and draping by Madeleine Vionnet. (HB)

LOUIS VUITTON 

Prior to unveiling Louis Vuitton’s SS24 offering, guests – including Zendaya, Saoirse Ronan, Emma Chamberlain, and Peggy Gou – were ushered inside the label’s burning-hot showspace: a glowing orange chamber within the Champs-Élysées, draped in plasticky sheets to emulate the feeling of being inside a hot air balloon – a representation of LV’s long-spanning travel heritage.

Following suit, Nicholas Ghesquière injected the collection with playful, colourful odes to exploration – from suit dresses dressed-up with embellishment to look like pilots’ uniforms, to puffed-up, chequered tops resembling rolled-up sleeping bags, light-as-air skirting, and latex skydiving jackets. As for travel accessories, looks were finished off with orange-tinted goggles, leather make-shift seat belts wrapped around models’ waists, and small handbags based off the brand’s classic travel trunks. (HB)

DIOR 

Similarly to labels like Cormio and Kiko Kostadinoc, Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri took SS24 as an opportunity to unpack the different ways that women have been treated throughout history – this time specifically, within advertising. “When I look at the images of Mr. Dior’s work, I remind myself that they were done probably with a male gaze,” the creative director told Vogue. “I want to translate this with a view that’s more contemporary.”

With this in mind, the designer dove into Dior’s historic archive – rethinking old pieces to eschew the male gaze and document “unapologetic femininity”. IRL, this meant flashing a handful of feminist phrases by Elena Bellantoni as a backdrop to a dark, witchy collection – all brought together with tailored jackets printed with spidery imagery of the Eiffel Tower, gothic, wispy lace gowns, and velvet-collared, pointy jackets. (HB)

BALMAIN

We all know by now that each fashion season brings forth a healthy amount of wild and weird fashion moments. SS24, however, seemed to supply one of the most chaotic moments of the past few seasons when Balmain’s creative director Olivier Rousteing reported a major fashion crime: just two weeks before the label’s PFW show, a group of thieves hijacked a truck carrying 50 looks from the upcoming runway. “This is so unfair,” Rousteing wrote in a statement on Instagram, drawing attention to his team’s hard work on the collection.

Thankfully, the label was able to pull together its collection in the end – debuting a bright, joyful offering in spite of the burglary. Titled “Florals? For Spring” – a reference to Meryl Streep’s shady fashion critique from 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada which deemed floral looks as an obvious choice for a spring offering – the collection aimed to prove why they looks can exist as something more than superficial. Besides more straight-forward, floral-patterned garments, the offering saw polka dot dresses poofed-up like petals and topped with fabric rosettes and looks swirling with roses, vines, and thorns fashioned from patent leather, rubber, latex, and recycled plastic bottles. So, did the collection rise above Miranda Priestly’s sarcastic “groundbreaking” commentary? We’re not really sure. It did, however, stand as a testament to the team’s resilience and skills amid the devastating crime. (HB)

RABANNE 

Earlier this summer, the Spanish label formerly known as Paco Rabanne unveiled a new rebrand: like many luxury brands as of late, it dropped the “Paco” from its name – ushering in a brand new era for the label following the passing of its founder [Francisco Cuervo] in February. What hasn’t changed, however, is the label’s approach to creating highly-detailed art from unconventional materials. Armouring up for PFW SS24, Rabanne’s models walked the runway in a brand new iteration of the house’s signature space-age chainmail techniques.

As per usual with Rabanne, the collection’s inspirations seemed to land somewhere between sci-fi film characters and Joan of Arc. Bronze and silver chainmail was looped into ribbons as tops, trimmed with peacock feathers, and formed into suits of armour. Leaning further into the fantasy, creative director Julien Dossena topped off the looks with reflective metal balls joined into belt buckles, chunky rings and headbands, fuzzy low-hanging tops, and quartz clamped onto jewellery. (HB)

COPERNI

This season, Coperni cranked up the volume on the tech-meets-fashion identity conjured-up over the last few years. No – it didn’t provide another viral spray-on dress  moment or round up more mechanical police hounds which snatched handbags from models’ arms mid-runway; instead, the label presented a sleek, tailored collection, accessorised by a series of never-before-seen, dystopian tech items.

First – for an IRL Black Mirror moment – the label tacked a soon-to-be-released AI pin onto razor-sharp suiting [in particular, a pin-striped suit overflowing with low-hanging, slime-green shirt-sleeves worn by none other than Naomi Campbell] and a embedded a brown leather jacket with high-volume speakers. Next-up, the label resurrected old-school 90s Walkmans, dropping a new version of its rounded, leather handbags that act as a working CD player attached with 90s-style, wrap-around headphones. Come SS24, we’re sure to see the fashion crowd whipping out their old Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, and Christina Aguilera CDs. We knew we saved them for a reason. (HB)