Paris Fashion Week is back live

For its ready-to-wear show at Paris Fashion Week, the fashion house of Yves Saint Laurent secured a spot in front of the dazzling Eiffel Tower. Creative director Anthony Vaccarello sent the models down the runway in skin-tight bodysuits and sharply tailored evening gowns. Carla Bruni Sarkozy, wife of the former French president, sat in the audience.

After being held online due to the COVID pandemic, this year almost half of all participating fashion houses are hosting live shows again. The show kicked off with an extremely colorful collection by Nigerian-Austrian designer Kenneth Ize, who was inspired by traditional African fabrics and colors.

Themed "Il gioco del nonsense" or "The game of the absurd," Dior's creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, drew inspiration for her designs from her predecessor Marc Bohan and the 1960s. She created a completely new look for Dior: skimpy mini-skirts and short, A-shaped dresses, bright colors and feminine strappy shoes.

Creative director Olivier Rousteing celebrated his 10th anniversary at Balmain with a star-studded line-up: He had the new creations for the French fashion house presented by none other than Naomi Campbell, Milla Jovovich, Natalia Vodianova and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The collection featured muted tones, chains and slits here and there.

No creative director sends a new collection down the runway all by themselves. In the background, numerous tailors work at full speed — sometimes right up to the last minute. Here, a Dior employee puts the finishing touches to a dress before the big show in Paris. After all, everything has to be perfect.

"Ready-to-wear" is not always as its name suggests. Often the designs are so outlandish that they appear to be anything but "ready to wear." Such is the case with some pieces from the spring/summer collection of French designer Victor Weinsanto (pictured). With recurring shapes resembling pretzels, he alludes to his Alsatian origins.

A pyramid of large, bright pink spheres was the chosen backdrop for the staging of the Victoria/Tomas fashion show. Victoria Feldman and Tomas Berzins are not just professional partners but are also a couple. Their fashion reflects his passion for the skater culture and Tim Burton's eccentricity, and her fascination for experimental art.

Fashion from Germany was also on show in Paris. The Berlin-based label Ottolinger, run by Swiss designers Christa Bösch and Cosima Gradient, presented tight, asymmetrical designs that showed a lot of skin. For their fashion show, they chose a vacant apartment building not far from the Musée d'Orsay.

It's difficult to apply make-up on a masked face. So models are now allowed to be mask-free but not the make-up artists. Even if Paris Fashion Week appears to have returned to normal, it's still not quite like how it used to be. The fashion shows will end on October 5, with major houses like Balenciaga or Louis Vuitton set to stage live shows too.