Paris Fashion Week is an apparel trade show held semi-annually in Paris, France with Spring / Summer and Autumn / Winter events held each year. Dates are determined by the French Fashion Federation. Currently, Fashion Week is held in the Carrousel du Louvre, as well as at various other venues throughout the city.
Paris Fashion Week is part of the Big 4 fashion weeks internationally, the others being London Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week. The schedule begins with New York, followed by London, and then Milan, and ending the events in Paris.
In 2013, Paris Fashion Week (Fall / Winter season) starts February 26 with Moon Young Hee, and will be followed by shows from major fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton, Comme des Garçons, Christian Dior, Balenciaga, and more. These runway shows are held to show the fashion industry what the various labels will be releasing and to increase sales for the brands. The best models are featured in the shows, and catwalks must be perfected for them.
In addition to Ready to Wear shows, there are Men's and Haute Couture shows, which are held semiannually for the Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter seasons.
Famous quotes containing the words paris, fashion and/or week:
“[The] elderly and timid single gentleman in Paris ... never drove down the Champs Elysees without expecting an accident, and commonly witnessing one; or found himself in the neighborhood of an official without calculating the chances of a bomb. So long as the rates of progress held good, these bombs would double in force and number every ten years.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Fashion is primitive in its insistence on exhibitionism, which withers in isolation. The catwalk fashion show with its incandescent hype is its apotheosis. A ritualized gathering of connoiseurs and the spoilt at a spotlit parade of snazzy pulchritude, it is an industrialized version of the pagan festivals of renewal. At the end of each seasonal display, a priesthood is enjoined to carry news of the omens to the masses.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“I love meetings with suits. I live for meetings with suits. I love them because I know they had a really boring week and I walk in there with my orange velvet leggings and drop popcorn in my cleavage and then fish it out and eat it. I like that. I know I’m entertaining them and I know that they know. Obviously, the best meetings are with suits that are intelligent, because then things are operating on a whole other level.”
—Madonna [Madonna Louise Ciccione] (b. 1959)