Street style

More Streetstyle from Paris Fashion Week AW18

Demna's normcore influence takes hold of the French capital

Following on from our first style report from the streets outside the AW18 menswear presentations in Paris, END. presents the final digest of streetstyle in the French capital.

Home to an unprecedented number of luxury houses and labels, Paris continues its reign as Europe's fashion mecca for AW18 showcasing the latest visions from houses such as Valentino, Lanvin, and Dries Van Noten. These well-established luxury labels now stand shoulder to shoulder with relative newcomers Off-White and Heron Preston; resident Generals in the ongoing crusade to shutter the intellectual gap between couture and luxury streetwear.

Although each of the world's four key fashion destinations has its own distinct flavour and place in the fashion circuit - New York delivering a distillation of the hottest American and East-Asian brands, London best-loved for its subversive proclivity for emerging talent and experimental attitude, and Milan a seasonal celebration of the finest tailoring and classic eveningwear - Paris is the fashion equivalent of Mount Olympus, where industry monoliths present their latest iterations of style with collections which will drive hundreds of millions in revenue over the course of the season.

This season saw the normcore influence of Demna's Balenciaga and Vetements take hold of the Parisian streets, with boxy silhouettes and fealty to established style rules (double denim for starters) cast aside. These new codes of global streetwear sat in contrast to the traditional elegance Paris is famed for, converging within the Parisian petri dish of design to define a new era in menswear.

Exaggerated puffa jackets, classic 'dad-pants', and a casual baseball cap define the off-duty-normcore uniform in Paris.
European labels reposition the canadian tuxedo with bold logo placement, artistic aplliqué, and statement silhouette reworks for a prairie twist on euro-nostalgia
Tailored essentials are given a casual remix with an elegant exploration of colour and print.

Luxury streetwear essentials in a timeless palette of black and white set the bar for simplistic style with an effortless edge.

writerEuan Smart
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