Highlights of the Autumn/Winter Shows 2024

The autumn/winter 2024 ready-to-wear catwalk season has officially wrapped with hundreds of shows having taken place across New York, London, Milan and Paris.

First up, we had New York, where Tommy Hilfiger made a return to the schedule with a show that celebrated the city, while Khaite, Altuzarra and Helmut Lang also presented to star-studded front rows. London saw the likes of Simone Rocha, Molly Goddard and Burberry unveil their latest collections, while Fendi, Prada and Versace put on big shows in Milan. In Paris, we saw debuts from Sean McGirr at Alexander McQueen and Chemena Kamali at Chloé, as well as a return to the catwalk for Off-White, and a 10-year celebration show for Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton.

Below, see all the highlights from the AW24 season.

Courtesy of Celine

Celine

A week after Paris Fashion Week wrapped, Celine staged an off-schedule show in the French capital. Entitled ‘La Collection de l’Arc de Triomphe’, it was dedicated to Slimane’s friend and mentor, the photographer Richard Avedon, and was filled with references to the 1960s.

In-keeping with the brand’s current strategy of hosting audience-free shows, but streaming digitally, this show – which featured a mix of ready-to-wear and couture – made a splash not only for its distinctive Sixties-inspired pieces, but for a big announcement: that Celine would be launching beauty for the first time in the house’s history.

Courtesy of Celine

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Louis Vuitton

This season was a big one for Louis Vuitton as Nicolas Ghesquière celebrated 10 years as creative director of the house. For the anniversary collection, he looked back over his time at the brand, revisiting some of his most memorable silhouettes and key pieces from his collections over the years.

“[This was] a special collection that, while situated in the seasonality of AW24, also bears witness to a decade of fashion,” the brand said. “In this creative journey, it’s all about charting the right course, following one’s own North Star – the curious traveller’s essential compass.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Miu Miu

Miu Miu always delivers on the final day of fashion month and AW24 was no exception. Presenting pearl necklaces, leather gloves and skinny jeans, Miuccia Prada delivered a collection that was all about personal style, while a stellar line up of models, including Amelia Gray, Little Simz and Kristin Scott Thomas walked. In the show notes, she mentioned that the collection “draws inspiration from the span and scope of people’s lives, its shifting clothing types reflective of the development of character, both personal and universal. Concurrent gestures express different moments in life — they co-exist within single outfits, just as we each hold simultaneous memories of our own experience.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Chanel

Chanel’s collections are always somehow inspired by the house’s founder – and this season, Virginie Viard went back to where it all began: Coco Chanel’s very first boutique, which she opened in the seaside town of Deauville.

“Deauville is where everything started for the house,” Viard explained. “In 1912, the creation of her hat shop and then very quickly the first clothes with their visionary, radical style. It’s where it all began for Gabrielle Chanel. This story is very close to my heart.”

The collection – and the show space – paid tribute to Deauville, to Chanel’s trips there, to her early designs and to the other notable characters who have appeared along that famous boardwalk.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Courtesy of ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

Alexander McQueen

On a cold and wet Saturday night in Paris, Seán McGirr invited guests to view his debut collection as the new creative director of Alexander McQueen in an old train storage space. The concrete setting spoke to the days of the early, gritty Lee McQueen shows – and the clothing was inspired by some of his early work, most notably ‘The Birds’. What followed were different takes on the Lee McQueen language: peaked shoulder jackets, embellished shrunken suiting, and deconstructed fisherman knits. As McGirr noted backstage after the show, his new vision for McQueen was about “this idea of a compressed silhouette – but this is a modern proposal. I wanted to bring that forward, bring those silhouettes forward and see what I could do with real clothes.”

Courtesy of ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Victoria Beckham

This season, Victoria Beckham took inspiration from the literal wardrobe for her autumn/winter 2024 collection, and more specifically, from the hangers that clothes sit on inside a closet. This inspired the silhouette of various pieces (including a number of structured dresses and tops) while blazers and jackets sat draped on the shoulders, as they would a hanger, and dresses billowed as if they were pegged on a washing line.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Valentino

He is famous for his use of colour, but Pierpaolo Piccioli’s autumn/winter 2024 show for Valentino made a statement with absolutely no colour at all. The collection, named ‘Le Noir’, was presented entirely in black. But this was no dark, melancholic mood; instead, the designer wanted to demonstrate all the layers and depth that there are to black, to highlight silhouette, and to prove that true Valentino beauty can shine without any colour at all. Sheer blouses, lace layering, patent vinyl, dramatic fringing, delicate ruffles and striking shapes all featured in the collection, as well as some seriously beautiful eveningwear, which we’ll no doubt see on the red carpet in the coming weeks.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Mugler

It was all about amped-up eveningwear for Casey Cadwallader this season, who put on a theatrical and star-studded catwalk extravaganza for Mugler, which saw the likes of Eva Herzigová, Irina Shayk, Mona Tougaard, Paloma Elsesser and Kristen McMenamy walk. The collection – which was filled with revealing dresses and plenty of underwear as outerwear – was all about personal power, he said.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Loewe

For AW24, Jonathan Anderson made us think not just about the past, but about luxury today and the value of things. He alluded to the kinds of attachments — or disassociation — we have to the products we shop and wear. “Why do we buy things and why do those things have meaning?” He questioned. “It’s the idea of a Chippendale chair, of a commission of those chairs, and the idea of an outsider looking into a world [of the original maker] that we don’t experience.” Our perceptions of clothing and objects can shift and change over time and often, our eyes are tricked into seeing something else.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Vivienne Westwood

With Sam Smith, Lila Moss and Amelia Hamlin on the catwalk, Andreas Kronthaler presented a headline-making collection that was inspired by a Giovanni Battista Moroni exhibition in Milan, and also by protective sportswear. Signature corseted gowns with exaggerated frills and ruffles were juxtaposed with revealing menswear and jersey materials.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Carven

“This collection, my second for the house of Carven, represents the next chapter in the story of this evolving and personal brand,” said Louise Trotter. “I have continued to develop the wardrobe archetypes, the everyday made precious, brought to life in unexpected context, fabrication and proportion. The allure of being dressed up and yet in stages of undress; a space where there is no separation between daywear and evening and where typical daywear silhouettes and fabrics morph into atypical occasion or evening wear. Misplaced classics infused with the comfort and ease of sportswear.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Balenciaga

“What is luxury? What is fashion, and why does it continue to be relevant? For whom am I doing this? Is fashion sufficient?” These are the questions that Demna asked for his autumn/winter 2024 show, commenting on the overconsumption of fashion and our constant need to shop. He questioned why we will never have enough. The clothes reflected this question with tags visibly still attached as if they had been left in the wardrobe unworn and forgotten about, pieces layered upon one another (including a dress made of about 50 bras stitched together) and he even partnered with eBay, delivering unique resale pieces to each show guest as an invite.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Courtesy of Schiaparelli

Schiaparelli

Daniel Roseberry’s Schiaparelli has become a real favourite on the red carpet, but this season’s ready-to-wear was a world away from the celebrity-loved couture that we have come to identify the brand with, and was instead all about everyday staples (but of course done in a very Schiaparelli way). Suiting, denim, coats and elegant cocktail dresses filled the catwalk. “These collections are complete wardrobes of everyday staples — but with the volume turned up to Schiaparelli settings,” he said.

Courtesy of Schiaparelli

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Givenchy

Givenchy is currently between creative directors after Matthew M. Williams departed in December, so this season’s collection was designed by the in-house studio team who wanted to capture the “playful and provocative sides to the femininity at the heart of the maison,” they explained in a press release.

“Within her instinctive elegance, the Givenchy woman charges her wardrobe with sensuality and suspense and defies the expectations of dress codes. Through a contemporary conversation with the archives of Hubert de Givenchy, the collection illuminates the flirtatious and suggestive aspects of the muses who inspired the founder, and projects them in the present-day character of his enduring Parisienne.”

Alluring necklines, bold drapery and beautiful embellishment all featured.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Off-White

Off-White returned to the catwalk and saw Ib Kamara present his collection ‘Black By Popular Demand’. “This is a collection charged with energy and movement, bursting with vibrancy,” Kamara said. “In my vision, Off-White stands on its own, in a niche of luxury that is not quiet, and not even loud, but playful. We are certainly not holding back in imagining fashion with a capital F, as in FUN.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Isabel Marant

For autumn/winter 2024, Isabel Marant presented a collection that was filled with her house signatures with a very heavy western feel. Fringing, suede, jumpsuits, jackets, print and lots and lots of leather all came down the catwalk, in what the designer said was a “a rough-meets-sexy mood of the season”.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Chloé

On Thursday morning, Chemena Kamali presented her very first collection as creative director of Chloé, heading back to her roots after working for the house under Phoebe Philo in the early 2000s and more recently, under Clare Waight Keller. “Coming back to Chloé feels very natural; almost like returning home for a new beginning,” she said today. “This collection comes from a very personal, emotional connection to a house I love, to a spirit I love and for the women I love.”

Kamali presented a collection that felt very aligned to the spirit of the brand. Seventies-inspired silhouettes, Boho chic separates and unapologetically feminine pieces came down the catwalk as the designer tapped into a feeling that she said she missed when she was working away.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Cecilie Bahnsen

“I wanted to explore new directions this season, evolving the codes of the brand through meaning and care, with a relentless dedication to creativity and beauty,” Cecilie Bahnsen said of AW24, which was nicknamed ‘The Bite’. “Embracing a darker side of romance and interpreting a wider range of emotions, while remaining true to an unapologetic connection to femininity and craft.”

Bahnsen collaborated with artist Casper Sejersen on the show space, with the catwalk taking place around a giant apple.

“For me, an Apple represents desire. Love. Strength. Beauty. But there is also an ordinariness to it. I am drawn to this juxtaposition of high and low, the clash between luxury and everyday. I felt a connection with Casper’s work, to the edge in the beauty of his images, an undercurrent of darkness, something unexplainable. This idea of The Bite is like leaving innocence behind a little, which somehow also felt very relevant this season.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Balmain

This season, when diving into the house archives, Olivier Rousteing chose to focus on the founder’s love of gardening, and ended up paying tribute to his beloved Bordeaux.

“From the moment I began sketching, I found myself injecting more and more of my own history into this runway. For example, instead of Monsieur Balmain’s more familiar apple, nut and strawberry embellishments, I went all out with prints, embroideries and 3D representations of bunches of grapes — the symbol of the most famous product of my hometown, Bordeaux. And the truth is that it felt very right to tweak our plans slightly and look southwest for additional inspirations. After several collections riffing on the beauty of my present home, Paris, and a series of presentations channeling the extraordinary spirit, craft and patterns of the Africa of my birth parents, today I’m returning to Bordeaux, the city that formed me.”

Elegant cocktail dresses, floor-length faux fur coats, gingham prints, trench coats, khaki trousers, military coats, floral ballgown skirts and lots of unique grape prints and motifs (including the most dramatic earrings) all featured.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Acne Studios

“I’ve always been drawn to leather and denim,” said Jonny Johansson. “It’s the spirit of Acne Studios. One of our first collections in the late Nineties was called ‘leather and denim’; two things that belong together. This season, we’ve created a powerful leather and denim woman. I’ve always related to clothing through subcultural movements. Denim and leather can transcend genre and subcultures – from punk to S&M. When you want to feel tough you gravitate towards leather and denim; it’s like armour. It always feels right. An empowering safety zone.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Saint Laurent

Sheer was the name of the game at Saint Laurent this season as Anthony Vaccarello explored “what is at the centre of fashion by rendering it invisible: clothes”. He presented close-fitting silk dresses that were completely transparent and worn nude underneath, citing Marilyn Monroe’s naked dress as a reference. “Transparency – a Saint Laurent signature – is re-read, minimising the distance between garment and skin so the two effectively meld and fabric evaporates like mist. Caressing the leg just below the knee,  the length is classic, but the content is novel.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Dior

This season saw Maria Grazia Chiuri dive into the Dior archives and remember a very special day in the house’s history, 11 September 1967, which is when its first ever ready-to-wear line launched.

“While the free and abundant spirit of the 1960s was sweeping over Paris, a new page was written in the history of Dior,” the show notes explained. “The house had just introduced its first ever ready-to-wear line, named Miss Dior. It was a brand new concept that perpetuated the couturier and founder’s ambition to dress all women.”

This included very Sixties-friendly white knee-high boots, free-flowing A-line skirts, polo necks, berets and checked prints. Meanwhile, trenches, blazers and skirts were emblazoned with ‘Miss Dior’ graffiti, and the colour palette was lifted right out of that 1967 collection.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Tod’s

For autumn/winter 2024, Matteo Tamburini presented his debut collection for Tod’s, which spoke to the quality that the brand is so well known for, but felt like a very wearable collection with plenty of workwear, leathers and easy-to-style separates. According to the house, this collection was about “the duality between urban life and leisure, formal and informal, tradition and innovation”.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Tom Ford

This season marked Peter Hawkings’ second collection for Tom Ford, and it was just and sultry and glamorous as the last. The designer presented long sheer dresses, sparkly gowns, as well as plenty of utilitarian pieces including jumpsuits, tailoring and shorts, all of which will no doubt be hits with the many A-list names that were sitting on the front row.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Marni

This season marked Marni’s 30th anniversary, and saw Francesco Risso present a futuristic collection in a cave-like setting made of paper. For autumn/winter 2023, he explained that the team was working against any pre-conceived notions. “We’ve forbidden any images or references from seeping into our design process. By casting out the idolatry of mirrors, filled to the brim with conquering dreams, we have returned to an almost animal state, slowly relearning to stoke the fire, independent of para-essential needs, engines, planets, or, as Virginia Woolf would say, that very jar on the nerves, the thing itself before it has been made anything…Today, on the 30th anniversary of Marni, we stand on these five letters, symbolising a mythology accumulated over the years.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Jil Sander

“The essence of Lucie and Luke Meier’s work lies in the constant search for a balance between sensitivity and form, intimacy and presence, image and intention, concentration and humour,” the house said in its show notes. “Every piece has the subtlety of couture, in definition and materials, but also the dexterity and meticulous and inventive handwork of the craftspeople who create every Jil Sander piece.” Quilted dresses, oversized silhouettes and plenty of pops of colour came down the catwalk in what was an effortless collection that was all about craft.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Gucci

Autumn/winter 2024 marked Sabato De Sarno’s second collection for Gucci – after he was appointed seven months ago, tasked with a nearly impossible assignment: to steer the brand away from its former creative director’s bold, outsize, magpie aesthetic to something more relatable, more appealing. De Sarno says he cares deeply about dressing real human beings for their very real lives. “I start with people, always,” he tells us. He is uninterested in making clothes for people to take selfies in (though there are plenty of Instagrammable pieces in the current collection), or in pleasing a small, insular group within the industry whose opinions, ultimately, won’t have any bearing on, say, a woman in the Midwest walking into a Gucci store and falling in love with a perfectly tailored double-breasted jacket. This collection was all elevated slip dresses, cool tailoring and just a little bit of sparkle.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Ferragamo

This season, Maximilian Davis chose to explore the 1920s, showing raised hems, fluid fabrics, dropped waists and relaxed cuts. “The 1920s used clothing as a way to celebrate freedom,” he says. “And that expression of freedom is something which resonates with me, with my heritage, and with Ferragamo.” He cited the likes of Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo as influences for the collection, as well as the freedom that people were craving. “In the Twenties, as a response to the world that surrounded them, people created their own spaces through speakeasies. They were hiding what they were wearing until they were safe.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Giorgio Armani

Entitled ‘Winter Flowers’, this collection was, the house explained: “A message of grace and hope intertwined with the power and energy of nature and the life cycle of our planet…Flowers that bloom even in the depths of winter, heralding beauty and regrowth, adorn the garments in this collection, emphasising their airy, fluid forms and the sense of harmonious elegance that underpins the essence of Giorgio Armani’s work.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Dolce & Gabbana

Dolce & Gabbana’s autumn/winter 2024 collection was entitled ‘Tuxedo’ and was “an ode to femininity seamed in velvet and lace, mesh and chiffon”. As the name would suggest, there was plenty of tailoring, but there was a whole lot of underwear-as-outerwear too with lace bralettes, sheer skirts and silk pieces dominating the sultry collection.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini

This season, it was the “sharp sophistication” of the women Alfred Hitchcock’s movies that proved the inspiration for Lorenzo Serafini. The prints, colours and silhouettes all drew from the director’s aesthetic, while he also specifically referenced the Psycho‘s shower scene which featured Marion Crane wrapped in a bathing towel, as inspiration for the wrap skirts, which featured heavily in the collection. This is the wardrobe of “an intelligent, empowered and elegant woman, who navigates life with the right dose of confidence,” he explained.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Alberta Ferretti

“This season the stylistic path starts from the materials, and from the most classic of oppositions – masculine and feminine, compactness and lightness, solidity and evanescence, chiffon and flannel, lace and chevron – to take shape in a reversal of perspectives that is all in the way of making things, in following new approaches,” read the show notes for Alberta Ferretti’s AW24 collection ‘In The Making’, which was filled with slip dresses and tailoring, coats and draping, and the most beautiful details.

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Bottega Veneta

Always a highlight of Milan Fashion Week, Matthieu Blazy delivered another standout collection this season, one which was inspired by the “monumentalism of the everyday”. “A sense of allure and confidence in the pragmatic, utilitarian and purposeful. How daywear is perceived in this nighttime world; silhouettes are simplified and recognised like monoliths in the dark. In a world on fire, there is something very human in the simple act of dressing.”

LAUNCHMETRICS SPOTLIGHT

Estrop//Getty Images

Versace

Donatella Versace leaned into her rebellious side for the autumn/winter 2024 show, with the designer bringing “a considered wildness” to the collection. The was seen through power tailoring pushed to extreme proportions, “disruptive” draping and deconstructed prints.

“This collection has a rebel attitude and a kind heart,” said Donatella. “The woman is a good girl with a wild soul. She is prim but sexy. Don’t mess with her!”

She added: “The clothes take the codes of contemporary formal tailoring and disrupt them with cut, drape, and embellishment. The collection focuses on pure lines, innovative fabrics, considered wildness. This is us. This is Versace!”

Celine

Louis Vuitton

Miu Miu

Chanel

Alexander McQueen

Victoria Beckham

Valentino

Mugler

Loewe

Vivienne Westwood

Carven

Balenciaga

Schiaparelli

Givenchy

Off-White

Isabel Marant

Chloé

Cecilie Bahnsen

Balmain

Acne Studios

Saint Laurent

Dior

Tod’s

Tom Ford

Marni

Jil Sander

Gucci

Ferragamo

Giorgio Armani

Dolce & Gabbana

Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini

Alberta Ferretti

Bottega Veneta

Versace

Similar Posts

Know more about

About