The 4 gender-fluid fashion trends to know from Paris' Menswear Fashion Week

I love Paris for its iconic lineup of prestigious brands like Hermès, Paul Smith, Dries van Noten, Loewe and Dior. After a full week of fashion, filled with fries and far too much red wine, I have seen a lot, and I am so excited about where we are at. From the fashion week guests to runways, fashion looks fun, fluid and a bit extra – and I love seeing it.

But what made me really excited was seeing many new emerging brands showing, everyone from Steven Passaro to Arturo Obegero and Lukhanyo Mdingi. And my Scandi favourites such as Swedish Acne Studios, Lazoschmidl, Danish Rains, Henrik Vibskov (who presented the collection digitally) and Finnish Aalto International. I even celebrated Scandi midsummer in Le Marais at Filippa K’s showroom, which later turned into a flower crown workshop.

Here are my favourite gender-fluid highlights from Paris Menswear Fashion Week Spring Summer 2023:

This season was all in for sequins, crystals and shimmer. We saw sparkly sequin tops at Lazoschmidl, Egonlab and Jeanne Friot, styled with high-rise trousers, matching sequin bottoms and platform boots. Another sparkly moment was at Christian Louboutin, where I discovered another beautiful, inclusive shoe collection from the brand of platform boots covered in silver, crystals and colourful sequins that come in bigger sizes. But the sparkle didn’t stop there, there were crystal-embellished belts and belly chains at Wooyoungmi, caps dripping with crystals at Feng Chen Wang and pearl, along with gemstone embroidered garments at Arturo Obegero.

I recently wrote about the term “man bag” and whether we need gendered terms like this. And brands like Hermès, Acne Studios, Bianca Saunders and Casablanca proved once again that bags are definitely for everyone, no matter the gender. Hermès served bags with fun prints and colours, but my personal favourite was a yellow bag with studs in the shape of a heart.

Bianca Saunders again sent models to the runway with more minimal graphic bags in black, white, blue and red. Casablanca decided to embrace even more colour in their cowboy-inspired show with playful bags in rainbow colours, while Acne Studios presented small purses at their wedding-themed presentation in bold colours such as cobalt blue and powder pink. Another brand with great bags was Loewe – with signature puzzle bags, utilitarian crossbody and basket totes.

I don’t know if it was the heatwave during Paris Fashion Week or if we are all just ready for something a little bit more sexy? Watching the shows and presentations, sometimes I wondered if the models had forgotten to put their looks on as they were wearing very little or, let’s put it this way, barely anything.

At Louis Gabriel Nouchi we saw beautiful tailoring mixed with underwear and cutouts – topped off with a flowing caftan which discretely hid the more intimate areas, but revealed everything else. Exposed underwear was also a thing at Thom Browne’s highly sexual show, where we saw jockstraps and mini skirts similar to the viral Miu Miu ones but shown on male models.

For a more subtle hint of skin, we saw short shorts at Loewe, Steven Passaro and Egonlab, cutouts at Namacheko, Y/Project and Feng Chen Wang, and sheer knitwear at Lukhanyo Mdingi and Mowalola and cropped tank tops at Acne Studios and Wooyoungmi.

It was not just Thom Browne who featured skirts in their show. Egonlab has been layering their suits for multiple seasons with pleated tennis skirts; this time, we saw skirts made of denim. Casablanca also added a denim skirt to their collection, which was longer, touching the model's ankles. Meanwhile, Kenzo opted for sailor aesthetics – a standout look featured a stripy navy skirt, short jacket and beret, a bit like Emily in Paris, but chicer.

Emerging brand De Pino introduced a long cream, almost bridal, skirt in their collection in addition to shorter black ones. And Mr. Saturday sent models in all kinds of skirts to the runway, but the most dramatic being a long sky blue one, styled with a lace corset. I also loved the green pleated skirts at Lukhanyo Mdingi, not to mention the pink wrap skirt at Dries Van Noten styled with a shirt and tie, along with pinstripe trousers.

Seeing a man in a skirt is as natural as seeing a woman in a pair of trousers, but, unfortunately, many people don't feel the same. However, having more presence on the Paris runway may inspire more people to ditch society's rules on how to dress based on gender and wear whatever they like. And then summer 2023 will be the summer of skirts for all.