It’s only been six months since Paula Canovas del Vas picked up and moved to Paris, but her bright little atelier in the 19th is packed to the rafters with neatly labeled boxes brimming with colorful scraps. A pocket door does double duty as a backdrop for photoshoots. Just days before this presentation, the racks were packed with colorful looks pieced together primarily from dead stock sourced here and there. The designer’s signature shoes, with upturned, twin-peaked toes, were lined up in a row on the cutting table.
Paris being a gift for young creatives, Canovas del Vas decided to produce a collection that was “like wrapping yourself as a present,” Christo-style. Upstairs at the Instituto Cervantes, a dusty blue taffeta dress that tied in black was paired with jeans sourced from deadstock and stitched inside out. “She’s taunting me,” whispered guest Betty Bitschlap, the Danish drag queen, of that look. “I want it all.”
Models dressed in red body suits wandered among sculptures by Faye and Gina Studio, unwrapping and donning looks like a sweater vest in earthy ombré knit with a striped trim and patterned inserts, or jackets cut in trompe l’oeil—part bomber, part basque. Canovas del Vas referenced her love of Paris in painterly heart shapes, for example as a print on a jersey dress. Bloomers had a whiff of flamenco. The designer said that she and her studio make a point of wearing pieces all over town, and notably while cycling, just to be sure they hold up. “It’s a long process of studying volume and thinking about what feels comfortable,” she said. Her ideas are gaining traction: The K-Pop girl band NewJeans has already come calling, and the designer is headed to China in a few weeks. It will be interesting to see where that leads.