Couture Comings and Goings
What’s Happening: This Paris couture week will be defined by designer comings and goings. Gucci-bound Demna is slated to stage his final show for Kering stablemate Balenciaga on Wednesday afternoon, followed by Glenn Martens’ debut at OTB’s Margiela that evening.
Up First: The week will get its unofficial start on Sunday when Michael Rider makes his ready-to-wear debut for Celine. Dior and Chanel are taking a backseat this season (Dior is skipping couture, while Chanel will show another studio-signed collection) and Celine’s decision to seize the moment was probably the right call. That said, succeeding Hedi Slimane, who more than doubled annual sales, was never going to be easy. Expect evolution, not revolution.
Last Act: Demna’s final show for Balenciaga is sure to be emotional. His decade-long tenure was nothing short of transformational: the designer turned Balenciaga into a global fashion sensation, more than quadrupling sales, with an unholy collision of goth-inflected streetwear and Balenciaga’s couture codes, wrapped in post-internet marketing provocations.
A couture finale is fitting: back in 2021, Demna’s skilful revival of the house’s couture line proved a masterstroke that rebalanced the brand after heavy marketing of sneakers and hoodies threatened to dilute its image. Does Balenciaga need another reset? With Demna headed to Gucci, ex-Valentino designer Pierpaolo Piccoli is waiting in the wings.
Fashion Drama: The bar is high for Glenn Martens’ debut at Margiela, where he succeeded star couturier John Galliano in January. Galliano produced some of the industry’s most artistic, and viral, couture outings (even if there was little link between his shows and the brand’s best-selling products). But Martens is no stranger to drama and provocation himself, and OTB is doubling down on the creative director to design Margiela as well as its flagship Diesel brand, while it shakes up the top creative ranks at its Jil Sander and Marni labels.
Liberation Day 2: The Tariffing
What’s Happening: In April, President Donald Trump delayed “reciprocal” tariffs on many countries for 90 days. On July 9, time’s up.
Art of the Deal: The Trump administration is simultaneously negotiating numerous bilateral agreements with nations targeted by his tariffs, including most of fashion’s biggest manufacturing hubs. So far, just two deals have been signed: one with the UK in May, and a second with Vietnam last week. The latter came as a particular relief to the fashion industry, as Vietnam is behind only China in the amount of clothes, footwear and accessories it ships to the US. Vietnamese importers will pay a 20 percent duty, not the 46 percent threatened on April 2.
Down to the Wire: That still leaves agreements to be reached with other countries that are central to fashion’s global supply chain, including Cambodia (which faces a 49 percent tariff) and Bangladesh (37 percent). China has a temporary agreement to avoid tariffs as high as 145 percent, which expires in August. In other cases, it’s slow going, particularly with large trading partners such as Japan that have greater negotiating power.
Exploring Alternatives: The fashion industry isn’t waiting to find out which countries sign more agreements, with brands using bonded warehouses to sidestep customs enforcement, altering designs to lower costs and, where necessary, raising prices (Rhode was the latest brand to break the news to customers last week that its popular lip tints would soon cost $2 more). The Trump administration has gotten wise to one common method used to evade duties; Vietnam agreed to a 40 percent duty on goods from other countries passing through its ports en route to the US.
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