Thirty-two degrees and not a cloud in sight, this was my hottest couture week yet. Paris shone in the heat, the whole city moving in a blur of black cars, air-kisses and back-to-back schedules. As a personal shopper sourcing for private clients around the world, these four days are the crescendo of my year with shows, re-sees, and appointments stacked together, all for the purpose of sharing the most unique pieces with my clients in real time.
Day One
I began where couture always feels most itself, at Georges Hobeika, hosted inside the cool marble atmosphere of the Bourse. I was dressed head to toe in Hobeika, as I like to be for this show, with an always incredible touch of embellishment. This collection, titled The Visitor, was a meditation on presence and the hundred hours of handwork behind a single passing moment; my favourite gown dissolved as it walked from sheer black into sequin, then silver, then gold.
Georges Hobeika
From there, I ran out into the heat to the ArdAzAei show. Bahareh Ardakani drew on the Persian tale of the nightingale and the rose, translating longing into rose-patterned lace, delicate pleating and warm, coppery reds pulled from naturally dyed tapestries.
A quick change followed into vintage Jean Paul Gaultier from my favourite showroom in Paris, Majco x Jove, before the Schiaparelli re-see at the Petit Palais. I love bumping into everyone here, from fellow industry contacts and VIC clients who are all in town for the week; it has become a favourite catch-up spot surrounded by some of the most incredible pieces. Daniel Roseberry’s The Call of the Void was incredible: the body sculpted and subverted, latex and baked flowers where silk should be. My favourites were the blue and pink latex bustier dresses. The night finished at Maison du Caviar for the Georges Hobeika afterparty, where I wore a white fringed Maticevski gown that moved all evening.
Schiaparelli
Day Two
The following day was a slower yet still sun-saturated start on Place Vendôme. It was still so hot that I refused to compromise on my look, styled all day in black sequinned Clio Peppiatt. In the Chanel high jewellery salons, where I discovered Signes & Symboles. Eighty-five pieces were reinterpreted into Gabrielle Chanel’s talismans, the star, the comet, the camellia, and her lion in the most colourful jewels.
Photograph Credits:Elle Urakova
Nearby, I took in the latest creations from Yanina Couture, one of the Russian couture houses my clients have increasingly begun to ask for. Five minutes away at L’Olympia, Stéphane Rolland staged his always-beautiful presentation and this season a tribute to Dalida, on the very stage she once sang in, an almost entirely white collection of architectural, stone-embroidered gowns.
Stéphane Rolland
The day ended with a bang for the Ashi Studio show, a house I love working with. The Wild Hunt marked Mohammed Ashi’s twentieth year, a Victorian heroine wandering into a surrealist, Rothschild-ball fantasy. My favourite look was a black hourglass bustier and skirt made from horsehair, which had already begun demanding orders before it had left the room.
Ashi Studio
Day Three
Wednesday began at Villa Dior, a building standing since the 1600s that famously hosts the maison’s haute couture re-sees. To mark the occasion, I wore vintage Dior, another find from Majco x Jovem. Jonathan Anderson’s couture bloomed with the sculptural spirit of the artist Lynda Benglis and the landscapes of Ahmedabad and Santa Fe, in micro-pleated organza and fragments of eighteenth-century chintz. I was absolutely taken by one haute couture cactus bag, a sculptural little marvel valued at €50,000.
Iris van Herpen
The re-see of Iris van Herpen and her Sonic Starquakes, which was inspired by vibrating stars and plasma, one dress cradling hand-blown glass structures of living light. Then a couture-week favourite of mine was next at the Robert Wun show, where you never quite know how he’ll leave you in awe; every piece is a work of art. His Childsplay collection was pure imagination, and my favourite was a red ball gown with a matching red bubble orb that matched with Cardi B in the front row wearing her own version.
Robert Wun
Manish Malhotra closed my day, and for an Indian house, this was a moment of real weight: his official Paris haute couture debut was staged in a beautifully pink-lit room. Maa was a tender love letter to his late mother, Sudarshan, built from the colours of the sarees she wore and the crafts of home with intricate Chikankari embroidered by women across India, brocades woven through with gold and silver, our textile heritage carried proudly onto couture’s most rarefied stage. The finale said everything: that iconic chandelier look, luminous and monumental, seeming to light the room from within the world’s grandest fashion stage.
Manish Malhotra
Day Four
A slower end to the week, and a highlight was at the Balenciaga re-see, Pierpaolo Piccioli’s first couture for the house, which was filled with colour, feathers and reworked archival volumes, shown in the original Balenciaga haute couture salons, which have been left almost untouched since their origins. I was able to study each piece up close and personal, ready to revert to my clients and prepare their next appointments. Finally, I couldn’t leave without returning to Ashi to see those extraordinary pieces in the flesh one last time. My final stop was at my favourite vintage showroom, Majco x Jovem, which had just opened the doors to its new store, ending a week of the new season among the treasures of the past.
Balenciaga
If a single thread ran through every house this season, it was nature that was coaxed, sculpted, embroidered, and reimagined, from van Herpen’s cosmos to Ashi’s shells to Dior’s chintz gardens. Couture week may be a blur of heat, diamonds, and back-to-back appointments, but behind every look there is a client who is often planning their looks up to a year in advance, for the special events and moments still to come. I am always already thinking about what comes next.
Isabel Bazzani is a luxury stylist and personal shopper based in Paris, known for sourcing exclusive pieces for her high-net-worth clients. She wrote this Couture Week diary exclusively for ELLE India.
