PARIS — With physical events up in the air, the provisional Paris Couture Week schedule published Wednesday by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode shed little more light on what might happen come January, as France battles the pandemic’s fifth wave.
The calendar has kept a configuration similar to past iterations for spring 2022, opening with Schiaparelli at 10 a.m. on Jan 24.
While 31 houses will showcase their collections between Jan. 24 and 27 — on par with July’s 33 houses — last season’s buzziest entrant, Pyer Moss, did not reprise its spot. Also notably absent is Maison Margiela.
Valentino will be back in Paris, after the Italian house’s Venetian interlude. After having sat out last season, Giambattista Valli and Ralph Rucci, who previously showed under the name RR331, are back, showing respectively on the first and last days of couture.
Meanwhile, Jean Paul Gaultier will unveil the second of its guest couturier series — this time, Glenn Martens is up. It will be something of a homecoming for the Belgian designer, who was recruited as junior designer for his women’s pre-collection and the G2 men’s label by Gaultier fresh off his 2008 graduate show at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
The sole new guest member this season is Moscow-based Yanina Couture, founded in 1993 by Yulia Yanina. Natalia Vodianova recently wore one of her flowery, filmy gowns to star in an advert for Samsung’s latest foldable smartphone. Yanina’s show will be the final one of the spring 2022 season, taking up the 6:30 p.m. slot on Jan. 27.
It joins fellow guests Aelis, Azzaro Couture, Charles de Vilmorin, Christophe Josse, Georges Hobeika, Imane Ayissi, Rahul Mishra, RVDK Ronald Van Der Kemp, Ralph Rucci, Yuima Nakazato and Zuhair Murad.
The final version of the calendar, revealing show formats, is expected to be published the first week of January.