Also in this issue:
Astounding Auction Results
Lauren Sanchez Bezos, Fashion Editor?
When I first started covering Paris couture—the made-to-measure high fashion for the .1 percent—in the early 1990s, it was a small and intimate affair. Most of the shows were staged in the opulent Belle Epoque ballroom of the Grand Hôtel—only Yves Saint Laurent and Versace showed elsewhere, Saint Laurent in the equally rococo ballroom of what was then the Hôtel InterContinental and is now the Westin, and Versace on a catwalk built over the swimming pool of the Hôtel Ritz.
Only 200 to 300 hundred people attended—clients, a great many from the United States, like Nan Kempner and Deeda Blair; editors, such as WWD's John Fairchild, Vogue’s Anna Wintour, and Harper’s Bazaar’s Liz Tilberis; retailers from luxury department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman and Harrod’s; a few celebrity ambassadors, like French actresses Catherine Deneuve and Carole Bouquet; and daily reporters, like me. There were no “influencers.” No paparazzi lining the sidewalks out front, photographing stars as they arrived and models as they exited. None of the circus you have now.
And the presentation was straightforward, following a strict set of rules set by French fashion’s governing body: 60-plus looks, starting with daywear, moving through cocktail to evening wear, and a wedding dress. Shows were long—at least 45 minutes, usually more. Each model came out alone, on a raised catwalk, walked slowly and purposefully, stopped in the middle and twirled, continued to the end, presented the outfit, twirled again, maybe took off the jacket, so you could see the blouse, then slowly made her way back. The clients were there to shop for next season’s wardrobe, maybe a wedding trousseau. They wanted to see the clothes. Coutures shows were not about noise, or advertising, or hype. They were was about selling beautifully-made Fashion.
Those days are long gone, as I saw during this week’s couture shows for the Spring-Summer 2026 season.
