SPHERE SPRING-SUMMER 2025 - SPRING TALES
“SPHERE, yes, it’s my first time. In a way, it’s like taking flight...” says Victor Weinsanto, whose “Cauchemar in the kitchen” collection for Spring-Summer 2025 celebrates the City of Light in a vivacious allegro mode, with Art Nouveau as its high point. The euphoria of the Olympic Games still lingers through this season, which is all about the French capital: waitresses with Eiffel Towers corseted and boned by hand, receipts in frayed fabric and giant plate hats two metres in diameter. Beyond the show, the inspiration is there, remarkable in the clothes embroidered with pearl motifs inspired by the lascivious curves of Guimard's metro.
This is a wardrobe that can be found at SPHERE, the latest edition of which runs from September 25th to October 1st at the Palais de Tokyo, and in a digital version, with the support of New Black and Grand Shooting.
Seven designers will be presenting their collections this season, from Abra, a brand founded in 2019 by Abraham Ortuno Perez, a former accessories designer for Loewe, Jacquemus and Coperni, to Charles de Vilmorin, whose expressionist-inspired polychrome patterns have become a key reference point. In March 2023, he presented his first ready-to-wear collection, and today he shows how he combines the dreaminess of his patterns with the functionality of a wardrobe that avoids all the clichés of the genre. Whether it’s the responsible extravagance of Paolina Russo and Lucile Gilmard, or the crazy optimism of Alphonse Maitrepierre, the creations here sweep away all fears and all inhibitions.
With SPHERE faithfully supported by Le DEFI and L'Oréal Paris, imagination and reality become a marriage of light: Florentina Leitner, who made her debut at Dries Van Noten before launching her own brand in 2022, drew inspiration for this collection from the “magical world” of The Last Unicorn, an American-Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. and released in 1982. The collection explores themes of transformation, identity and the quest for belonging, translating the film's enchanting imagery and emotional depth into contemporary fashion. An atmosphere she describes as “dreamy and ethereal”, with a “touch of nostalgia.” The colour palette of lavender, peppermint and sky blues evokes the film’s mystical landscapes, with the black of the dark castle and the red of the bull as counterpoints. It's as if fashion has become a fairytale again.
Meanwhile, for Lucille Thièvre, a graduate of the École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, who honed her skills at Hermès and then Givenchy before founding her own brand in 2021, “SPHERE is a wonderful setting.” She says this is a special sales moment that accounts for 70 percent of turnover, and a great way to showcase the collections. Based on the theme of “Lost and Found,” the Spring-Summer 2025 collection features around 50 pieces in which the influence of sport, exalted by a voluminous parachute taffeta, is combined with that of Haute Couture, with shirt dresses embroidered with L-shaped ribbons, smocked silk chiffon and embroidery made from a stock of pearls “lying dormant” at a family member's home. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, fashion as a form of woven alchemy.