Field notes from Paris Fashion Week
Another roundup from a great week with my friends in FRANCEEE
General thoughts on Paris
I’m back home after a chaotic, sweaty week in Paris. If you’ve been out of touch, last week was the hottest recorded temperatures in French history. And while Americans are used to blazing hot temps, one thing about us is WE GOT AC.
And the French do not.
But we made it work and still had a blast in the meantime. This is my third time going to Paris specifically for men’s fashion week, and it’s started to feel like returning to camp.
I’ve been lucky enough to build relationships with awesome brands, designers, creatives, agencies, and more. And while part of it has become a bit performative (i.e. a way for brands to spend their way being relevant), the core of what happens there (namely, that brands and stores place their wholesale orders for the seasons ahead) is very much intact.
As someone who considers himself an “industry outsider,” I find Paris to be a mixed bag.
There are two schools of thought in my head.
The pessimistic view
Brands tend to throw words around till they lose their meaning. We’re
“minimalist”
“contemporary”
“heritage”
Brands are iterating on product at a rapid pace trying to create new niches within niches.
As consumers, we’re all glued to our phones, trying to keep up with changing algorithms, calling photos we saw online a “creative reference” to mask the fact it’s a clear rip from something that came before it, and the sheer amount of popups and parties and dinners will make your head spin.
The scarcity of these kinds of gatherings is gone. Which in some ways is great, because it means the playing field is leveling out. On the other hand, we’re all accessing the same designers, factories, influencers, creative references, and so on.
And that might feel problematic, but I think it’s actually what makes these moments special.
So here’s the optimistic one
There are so many incredibly generous, kind, and supportive people in the space who are trying their best to make products that tell a story.
That’s why I love supporting independent, small to medium-sized brands. These brands employ people, pay them a good wage, source their fabrics and production locally when possible, and care for others like they would a good friend.
In my opinion, brands that focus on craftsmanship and well-made, luxury products (not trying to replicate or commoditize anything) are in safe hands.
Why?
A lot of these brands that are trying to shortcut their way to success won’t be around in 5, 10, or 15 years because they’re either doing it for the wrong reasons or they don’t have a community behind what they do.
Anyway, here’s another edition of Field Notes from Paris.
PS - HUGE thanks to my brother Zac Chambers for trekking thru these streets to photograph everything. Be sure to hit him up for anything on the photo front!
An activation I loved: Keen’s Camp Jasper
KEEN’s showroom was a nod to summer camp and climbing exploration, and they nailed the build-out. Big shouts to the Hotel Creative team on the execution.
KEEN's been making the Jasper since 2008. No single campaign launched it into the culture, no singular moment manufactured it into existence. Climbers adopted it first, for functionality’s sake. Then people who liked how it felt. Now people like it for the way it looks.
The context matters because everyone wants their own approach shoe now. Puma went back to a 2003 archive style and recontextualized it. Loewe made one in royal purple. Prada launched one at $1,100.
But bouldering gyms have grown 76% in the US over the last decade, and climbing has become what cycling and running once were, a city sport with a social layer, its own aesthetic, its own community.
The people coming out of those gyms aren’t looking for fashion shoes, necessarily. But they’re not opposed to a shoe that works in the gym and works walking to dinner afterward. The approach shoe answers that.
The Swap x Sprezza dinner
Hosted an intimate (sweaty) dinner with friends I’ve met over the years, most of them people I’ve gotten to know since landing here, a gathering of folks from all over who’d somehow never been in the same room.
Big thanks to Swap, a tech company with deep roots in fashion who I’ve had a relationship with for a while now, for making it happen.
Nights like this matter to me because building a life somewhere new mostly comes down to who’s around the table; getting to be the one who pulls those people together, instead of waiting for an invite, is the whole point.
Brands and products I loved
Knits and outerwear from Carter Young
These GATs from Kaptain Sunshine
These fatigue trousers from Dubbleware
Brand on the rise: Atlantic Coastal Supplies
These lovely knits from Kartik Research
What people wore
While there was untold amount of sweating happening behind the scenes, people still put that sh*t (as always) and we got to capture some fun moments from the week.
More later - for now let me know what I missed!