Mood board: The show was entitled ‘Performa’ in homage to the performance art biennial created by Roselee Goldberg in 2004. Ever since, this has explored the role of live performance within contemporary art discourse and encouraged new directions. ’The romance of Joseph Beuys’ Aktions at Documenta in the Seventies always thrilled me and, in my head, Performa is the evolution of that,’ Owens said in the show notes. At the start, guttural smoke machines were fired up, spewing a cloud of greyish cashmere smoke along the floor, skimming the shoes of the guests.
Best in show: The show opened with a series of cashmere all-in-ones that sinuously wrapped around the body. The look channelled a hard comfort. Draped tees; vinyl macs worn over puffas. Peaked shoulders mimicked Le Corbusier’s Modulor Man from the architect’s anthropometric scale of proportions devised in the late 1940s. Some knits were traced in graphic line and worn under double-faced cashmere robes. With his clothes, Owens has always embodied a performative kind of luxury. For A/W 20, the jackets and tabards were sculptural, unforgiving. Shoulders colossal. The collection was muted in grey yet lifted by painted snake, bright blue fish skin, leopard-printed satins and bleached seawolf patchwork.
Sound bite: Owens had been thinking about the designer as performer. ‘I had always regarded personal behaviour, social and moral, as something to quietly but diligently work on improving. But at 58, I find myself, for better or worse, performing,’ he considered. ‘The difference between behaviour and performance implies falseness and rehearsal in the latter, but maybe concentration on behaviour can be a bit passively dry? And performance a joyous contribution? Our Instagram generation makes refining behaviour vs indulging in performance a weird new balancing act…’
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Rowse’s make-up products are so nourishing that ‘you could actually sleep in them’As Rowse expands from skincare to make-up, Wallpaper* speaks exclusively with co-founders Nuria Val and Gabriela Salord about the biotechnology that underpins its innovative debut collection
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San Francisco’s controversial monument, the Vaillancourt Fountain, could be facing demolitionThe brutalist fountain is conspicuously absent from renders showing a redeveloped Embarcadero Plaza and people are unhappy about it, including the structure’s 95-year-old designer
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What is eco-brutalism? Inside the green monoliths of the movementThe juxtaposition of stark concrete and tumbling greenery is eminently Instagrammable, but how does this architectural movement address the sustainability issues associated with brutalism?
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French skincare brand PERS doesn’t believe in overcomplicated routinesFrench skincare brand PERS – an acronym for ‘protect, enhance, repair, and stimulate’ – has recently arrived in the UK. The mastermind behind it, Dr Antoni Calmon, tells Wallpaper* about his protocol
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What did Christian Dior’s favourite ‘invisible’ flower smell like?Dior’s Francis Kurkdijan recreates the scent of a rare lily of the valley species in Le Muguet, the first olfactory chapter of new perfume collection Les Récoltes Majeures
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Inside Camperlab’s Harry Nuriev-designed Paris store, a dramatic exercise in contrastThe Crosby Studios founder tells Wallpaper* the story behind his new store design for Mallorcan shoe brand Camperlab, which centres on an interplay between ‘crushed concrete’ and gleaming industrial design
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This perfume bottle archive was nearly lost. Now, it offers a rare whiff of fragrance historyFifty blueprints from a forgotten French crystal manufacturer will be for sale as part of the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair
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How an 18th-century mansion became a Loewe wonderland for Paris Fashion WeekDrawing on the act of scrapbooking, Jonathan Anderson took over the Hôtel de Maisons with a self-reflective A/W 2025 presentation, shown alongside colourful artworks from the brand’s collection
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Inside Sarah Burton’s debut show for Givenchy: ‘To go forward, you have to go back to the beginning’This morning in Paris, the former Alexander McQueen designer unveiled her anticipated debut as creative director of Givenchy – a musing on contemporary womanhood sparked by the discovery of lost Hubert de Givenchy pattern pieces
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‘Azzedine Alaïa - Thierry Mugler’: new Paris exhibition puts two fashion greats in conversation‘Azzedine Alaïa - Thierry Mugler’ at Fondation Azzedine Alaïa explores the affinity and friendship between two designers who redefined 1980s and 1990s fashion. Curator Olivier Saillard tells Wallpaper* about the unique show
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Abra’s A/W 2025 beauty look embraced the 1980s with furry wigs and ‘greige’ lipstickAbra’s A/W 2025 collection paid homage to New Romantics and the beauty routine of founder Abraham Ortuño Perez’s mother. Here, alongside hairstylist Charlie Le Mindu and make-up artist Cécile Paravina, he tells Wallpaper* more
