While there were still of course the Instagrammable moments and K-Pop special guests, the Fall 2023 runway season largely felt like a welcome slow-down, a return to what is essential about fashion: designing great clothes. A theme of reductiveness ran through the season, as we saw creative directors strip away fluff and dig into the core of their work and the identities of the heritage brands they represent.
While modernist master Rick Owens tends to always be right at the top of our Top 10 lists, this season sees him come in with a tie at number 7 – not that his collection, which felt classically Rick as it looked to Victorian attitudes to fill its play of volumes with a consideration of restraint and liberation, wasn’t excellent, but a lot of other brands and designers dug deep as well.
At Loewe, creative director Jonathan Anderson offered his own surreal take on the theme of reductiveness that characterized much of this season via the use of soft silhouettes, simple geometry, and a blurring of everyday reality. Tied with Loewe for second place is Bottega Veneta, where Matthieu Blazy continued to lift the curtain on new aspects of his vision for the house that is rooted in a mastery of craft techniques.
Fendi takes home the top spot with Kim Jones’ collection that referenced as muse Delfina Delettrez Fendi herself – the house’s artistic director of jewelry and a style maverick in her own right – to create a slick and subversively luxurious ode to the contemporary women who make Fendi all their own.
Here are The Impression’s Top 10 fashion shows of the Fall 2023 season as selected by our Chief Impressionist, Kenneth Richard.
10 – Sacai
10 – Jil Sander (tie)
9 – Ferragamo
8 – Burberry
7 – Rick Owens
7 – Dries Van Noten (tie)
6 – Miu Miu
5 – Louis Vuitton
4 – Prada
3 – Dior
2 – Bottega Veneta
2 – Loewe (tie)
1 – Fendi
