Trench coats conquer Paris Fashion Week. It’s time for a revolution

Fashion can be fabulous and ridiculous. This season, designers at most of the luxury houses showing at Paris Fashion Week chose the safe middle ground with countless trench coats, a paddock’s worth of leather skirts and more sheer dresses than a strip club.

The underwhelming result isn’t fashion, it’s just clothes.

Out of the trenches: Acne Studios, Courreges, Balmain, Isabel Marant and Rochas autumn/winter 2024 at Paris Fashion Week,Credit: Getty, supplied

After seasons of barbiecore, gothcore, cottagecore and balletcore we are out of adjectives and back to the core of trying to make money in challenging times.

Let’s just call it corecore.

For people happy to shop their existing wardrobes it’s inspiring but for those who revel in the boundary-pushing ridiculousness of exaggerated silhouettes, unexpected historical references and flights of fancy it’s a bore.

Trench warfare

This season, the trench coat became as basic as a white T-shirt. The challenge is to find designers pushing the trend far enough to make you tap your credit card.

If you already own a trench coat, follow the runway approach of Swedish brand Acne Studios and French label Courreges by doing up the buttons and flipping your collar like you’re a Cold War spy in a ’70s movie.

Olivier Rousteing at Balmain was more playful with proportion, exaggerating shoulder flaps, but it was Alessandro Vigilante’s debut as creative director at Rochas that took the wardrobe essential beyond basic.

A golden devoré velvet trench coat with ruched cuffs and a nipped waist brought the silhouette indoors, conjuring warming martinis rather than bloody battlefields.

Brown is the new black

The big brown: Dior, autumn-winter 2024 in Paris; Saint Laurent, autumn-winter 2024 in Paris; Ferragamo autumn-winter 2024 in Milan.

At Christian Dior, creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri put commerce front and centre with a highly wearable collection of Mod-inspired workwear dominated by brown coats and suits.

The extravagance of New Look skirts and cropped bar jackets was replaced by loose trousers, A-line skirts and, of course, trench coats.

A welcome jolt of excitement came with “Miss Dior” scrawled across key pieces to remind customers why they are dipping into their savings.

At Saint Laurent, baggy camel suits were a departure from the tailored perfection of the founder’s legendary Le Smoking silhouette. Designer Anthony Vaccarallo emphasised his businesslike approach by pairing highly saleable basics with nipple-exposing sheer pieces made from stocking fabric.

The blazers will be bought by the public while the sheer pieces could be worn by Hailey Bieber or Blackpink’s Rosé. Hopefully, they don’t get a ladder in their halter top.

With Ferragamo’s sales dropping last year by 7.6 per cent, designer Maximillian Davis defensively stuck to mostly military silhouettes, with coats, safari suits and leather shirt and pant sets in brown, accompanied by outbreaks of murky olive green.

Check it out

Checks please: Dries van Noten, Rabanne and Chloe autumn/winter 2024 runway at Paris Fashion Week.Credit: Getty

Competing with animal print as an attempt to awaken customer’s appetites was an outbreak of checks and plaids.

At Rabanne, the styling suggested that a pair of pyjama pants, flannelette shirt and thrift shop cardigan could transform you into Australian supermodel Julia Nobis who opened the show. Spoiler alert: it won’t.

Belgian designer Dries Van Noten provided greater refinement with his check clashes, teaming green, white and black pants with an oversized blazer. Worn over a sheer top, layered above a turtleneck, the combination reinforced the designer’s mastery of colour and ability to make wearability exciting.

The most exciting checks, boots and dresses were found at designer Chemena Kamali’s debut at revered French label Chloé.

Since Karl Lagerfeld worked at Chloé it has been the cool French girl brand, helmed with varying degrees of success by Gabriela Hearst, Phoebe Philo and Clare Waight Kellar.

It wasn’t just the check coat that made the show a success. It was a mood.

Inspired by Lagerfeld’s collections for the label between 1977 and 1979, Kamali made you crave the flowing scalloped white blouses, lace capes and violet sheer dresses.

Kamali delivered a beacon of creative hope. Yes, there was a trench coat but it came fringed, cropped and in butter soft leather. Finding that at the back of your wardrobe will be a challenge.

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