At the campus of the French Fashion Institute, 27 design students from 13 different countries are gearing up to present their year's work before a highly influential audience. The stakes are high: these students are poised to compete with fellow graduates from the prestigious Central Saint Martins school in London. But there's no denying that France still plays an outsized role on the international stage when it comes to fashion, as evidenced by the likes of designers Weinsanto, Pressiat and...

Stella McCartney, Marine Serre and Lilia Litkovska are three designers united in their belief that fashion, a notoriously polluting industry that often encourages excessive consumption, can itself be part of the solution. Through their latest ready-to-wear collections for next autumn and winter they showcase more sustainable modes of production, and advocate for fashion that has both style and heart. FRANCE 24 went to check out their Paris shows.

What exactly goes on in designers’ heads? Wim Wenders claims that Yohji Yamamoto has the power to heal people without the need for a therapist’s chair. Meanwhile Jeanne Friot delves into her own lesbian love story. Stéphane Rolland invites students from two Paris fashions schools on stage, as his collection questions the relationship between East and West. And Julien Fournié embraces the Hitchcock heroine aesthetic to bring down the patriarchy. 

Haute couture represents the apotheosis of fashion. Thousands of hours of work can go into a single item, destined to be worn just once. Couture offers a window into a multi-billion-euro industry. But it's also a pillar of French soft power, which was perfectly expressed this year at Dior, Imane Ayissi, Sara Chraïbi and Simone Rocha for Jean Paul Gaultier. FRANCE 24 takes you to check out the runway shows.

Stella McCartney, Laurence Airline, Vaillant Studio and Litkovska are four fashion labels founded and run by women. Inspired by a desire to always strive for better, these designers propose solutions to the biggest challenges facing fashion today – everything from overconsumption and textile pollution to convoluted supply chains. All four women know that, at its best, fashion can also be used as a weapon for good. FRANCE 24 went to meet them and check out their latest ready-to-wear shows in...

Japanese stylists have been making their mark on the Paris fashion scene since the 1980s, and continue to prove their mastery of the art of merging form and movement. Yohji Yamamoto, Yusuke Takahashi for CFCL, Maiko Kurogouchi and Satoshi Kondo for Issey Miyake – all these designers have a knack for taking the pulse of the planet, and, in turn, proposing new ways of dressing. We went to meet them in this edition of Fashion.

Togo's International Fashion Festival (FIMO), which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary in Lomé, has organised a catwalk show in Paris to promote African fashion. Jacques Logoh, FIMO's founder, is an outspoken advocate of fashion that's designed and produced on the African continent. A recent UNESCO report says that Africa is on course to be the world's next major fashion hub – on the condition that the industry receives sufficient state support. But that's by no means guaranteed. We...

In this edition we meet three up-and-coming fashion designers. Victor Weinsanto studied fashion in Paris before going on to work with Jean-Paul Gaultier. He later went on to found his own exuberant label, this year inviting his drag queen friends to model his latest collection. Meanwhile, Kevin Germanier wants to break with the bad habits of the past: he loves upcycling and breathing new life into old fabric. For Alain Paul, meanwhile, fashion is the work of marrying choreography and clothing...

"Ressusciter la rose" (Revive the rose) is an original musical tribute, a marriage of fashion, music and design, to celebrate the centenary of the Villa Noailles. This collection of Cubist-inspired buildings in the south of France was designed in the 1930s by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. It was commissioned by an iconic couple: Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles. The villa quickly became the go-to meeting place for the French avant-garde. So what exactly is the couple's legacy? We take a...

"Woman is an active subject of the historical process and cannot be confined to being the object of desire of patriarchy." That was the strident slogan written in letters on the wall of Dior's recent show, where creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri leant into the historically fraught image of the witch. The feminist fight was also at the heart of the offering from Valériane Venance's young label Indépendantes de Cœur, where a cage motif was central. The model within is entirely naked, but...

For their summer 2024 menswear collections, not one but two French designers have sought inspiration in literature. Louis-Gabriel Nouchi turned to Christopher Isherwood's "A Single Man", while Jeanne Friot dived into "The Little Mermaid", both books that explore the complexities and the often-repressed desires of the queer community. We also meet Mark Bryan, a robotics engineer who loves subverting the sartorial status quo by wearing skirts and heels in his daily life.

For his next film, "Finalement" ("Finally"), French director Claude Lelouch places his characters at the heart of a fashion show. The collection in question belongs to Parisian couturier Stéphane Rolland, who reveals his haute couture 2023/2024 winter offering on the grand staircase of the Paris Opera. The event pays homage to opera icon Maria Callas, and recreates the star’s “grande nuit de l’Opéra” that took place there in 1958. Lelouch’s actors, who perform in the midst of a live,...

July 2023 saw the third edition of a fashion competition in Paris called Africa Fashion Up. It aims to give a platform to young, up-and-coming African talent. Five designers from across the continent presented their collections at the Musée du Quai Branly, as they celebrated local craftsmanship with a global appeal. The winner, Aristide Loua, is an Ivorian who lived in France before returning to his home country, where he spent two years reacclimatising before embracing fashion. FRANCE 24...

Haute Couture is part of French soft power: creating thousands of jobs and huge profits, a world away from a dramatic news cycle. This season's Paris Fashion Week was no exception. Dior's show saw Maria Grazia Chiuri reinventing the pleats of ancient Greece, while Iris van Herpen experimented with new shapes to allow movement. In their new collections, the two fashion houses are creating an ode to lightness – perhaps an antidote to our turbulent times?

It was the fashion event of the season, if not the decade! Fashion journalists, buyers, celebrities and influencers from around the world descended on the French capital to see Paris's oldest bridge, le Pont Neuf, decked out in resplendent gold. The occasion was Pharrell Williams's first ever collection as head of menswear at Louis Vuitton. Another big celebrity draw elsewhere in Paris was the indefatigable Yohji Yamamoto, who's just a few months away from his 80th birthday. FRANCE 24 got a...

This year's Tunis Fashion Week took place at the Museum of Carthage, a recent recipient of some hefty funding from the European Union. The setting for the 14th edition was chosen by event founder Anis Montacer. He's launching his own label, Outa, with a collection made from recycled plastic waste. Also worthy of mention are Portuguese designer Joana Maltez, young Tunisian designer Haroun Ghanmi and Mouna Ben Braham, who reinvents traditional Tunisian wedding attire. FRANCE 24 takes a closer...

An enormous part of a museum's success depends on its curators. At Paris's Palais Galliera fashion museum, curator Alexandre Samson has declared 1997 a year unparalleled in its influence on global fashion. It was the year Jean-Paul Gaultier designed the costumes for Luc Besson’s film "The Fifth Element", Comme des Garçons and Martin Margiela revealed iconic collections and Tom Ford embraced the porno-chic aesthetic at Gucci. We check out a celebration of 1990s audacity at the exhibition...

The first edition of the IWP in 1954 crowned none other than Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. Fast forward to today, when designers from around the world compete for a prize fund of 200,000 Australian dollars and a prestigious mentoring program. The collections must be made from 100% wool and respect the principles of sustainable fashion. The Grand Prix this year was awarded to Nigerian designer Adeju Thomson, who was inspired by the idea of "decolonising design". 

Modest fashion is a way of dressing that respects specific clothing requirements for reasons of faith and also personal preference. The market for modest fashion is huge – and it's only getting bigger, with both designers and influencers keen to get in on the action. FRANCE 24 went to check out the second edition of Paris Modest Fashion Week. 

What are the hidden resources today's fashion designers can draw on? Research and exploration, which spark creativity. Young Ukrainian designer Ivan Frolov digs deep into our propensity to seek the source of our desires. Dutch designer Iris van Herpen immerses herself in the depths of the ocean. Back on dry land, Japan's Yuima Nakazato explores Nairobi's mountain of garbage. Dutch duo Viktor & Rolf take an intellectual approach to research with an ironic take on glamour, while France's...

In Lomé, the capital of Togo, Jacques Logoh has good reason to be cheerful. The young designer and founder of the Togo International Fashion Festival has made it his mission to ensure the event embodies the values of diversity. Alex and Kim are androgynous models. They're walking for – among others – Fauvette Nacto, in a show that's a celebration of marriage in all its forms. It’s a theme that a number of designers have been inspired by this year. FRANCE 24 went to take a closer look.

All fashion designers have one thing in common: whatever the challenges, however much the odds appear stacked against them, they find a way to keep working. Yohji Yamamoto, having recently lost two close family members, uses his anger as the force behind a period of contemplation. Meanwhile, Ukrainian designers Svitlana Bevza and Lilia Litkovska ensure they find ways to express themselves through clothes, despite living in a country at war. 

Before he arrived on the scene, fashion photography was stuck in a rut, endlessly repeating the stale poses of the 1950s. But US photographer Arthur Elgort turned all that on its head in the early 1970s when he started his long collaboration with Vogue. Today, at 82 years old and despite suffering a stroke, he's still working. We caught up with him in central Paris, where the Azzedine Alaia Foundation is dedicating an exhibition to him. The two fashion giants worked closely over the course of...

France's Victor Weinsanto, Vincent Pressiat and Alice Vaillant encapsulate a new generation of boundless energy and talent; of fashion designers determined to disrupt the sartorial status quo. Not only do they embrace the latest couture innovations, they're also firmly plugged into the zeitgeist – a desire to create fashion that's more responsible, more daring and more free. FRANCE 24 takes a closer look.