The Jewish Stories Behind This Year’s Paris Fashion Week
This week, the fashion world turns its attention to Paris.
From September 28 through October 6, designers are presenting their newest collections at Paris Fashion Week. There are celebrities, journalists and social media influencers in the front rows, new trends on the runways and instant reviews of the collections.
But looking at Paris Fashion Week, I find myself thinking less about what is new and more about the history behind some of the names we already know.
Because woven into this week’s shows are some remarkable Jewish stories.
Take Chloé.
Its founder, Gaby Aghion, was born Gabriella Hanoka in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1921, to a Jewish family. After moving to Paris, she founded Chloé in 1952 and helped pioneer luxury ready-to-wear at a time when French fashion was still dominated by haute couture.
More than seventy years later, Chloé remains one of the best-known names in fashion and will once again show at Paris Fashion Week this season.
Aghion’s legacy has also begun to receive wider recognition. In 2023, the Jewish Museum in New York opened Mood of the Moment: Gaby Aghion and the House of Chloé, the first museum exhibition devoted to her legacy.
Decades later, another designer with Jewish roots would take the helm at Chloé. Stella McCartney, whose mother, Linda Eastman McCartney, came from a Jewish family, became the house’s creative director in 1997.
On Wednesday, McCartney presented the Spring/Summer 2027 collection for her own namesake label in Paris. The show focused on ocean conservation and sustainability, themes that have long been central to McCartney’s work.
Then there was Sonia Rykiel.
Born Sonia Flis in Neuilly-sur-Seine, outside Paris, in 1930 to Jewish parents, Rykiel became one of the defining designers of modern French fashion. Her knitwear, stripes and relaxed approach to clothing helped move Paris fashion toward something less formal and more wearable.
Like Aghion, she helped change what French fashion could look like.
Alber Elbaz was another Jewish designer who left his mark on Paris fashion.
Born in Morocco to a Jewish family and raised in Israel, Elbaz became artistic director of Lanvin in 2001. Over the next fourteen years, he helped revive the historic French house and became one of the most influential and celebrated designers in the industry.
Lanvin will also be back on the Paris Fashion Week runway this season.
Louis Vuitton has an important Jewish chapter in its modern history as well.
In 1997, New York-born Jewish designer Marc Jacobs was appointed artistic director of the French house. At the time, Louis Vuitton was famous for its trunks and leather goods but had never produced a ready-to-wear collection.
Jacobs changed that.
His first collection for Louis Vuitton debuted in Paris in 1998, launching the house into ready-to-wear fashion. During his sixteen years at Vuitton, Jacobs helped transform the historic luggage company into one of the most influential fashion houses in the world, introducing clothing and memorable collaborations with artists including Stephen Sprouse and Takashi Murakami.
Louis Vuitton remains one of the biggest names on the Paris Fashion Week calendar and will close this season’s schedule on October 6.
But Jewish influence on Paris fashion was not limited to the people designing the clothes. It was also present in the magazines that helped shape how fashion was seen.
Hélène Gordon-Lazareff, born in Russia to a Jewish family and raised in Paris, founded ELLE in Paris in 1945, just after World War II. Through the magazine, she helped shape not only French fashion culture, but also the way millions of women would discover, understand and engage with fashion.
And then there is Chanel.
Behind one of fashion’s most recognizable names is the Wertheimer family, the Jewish family that controls the company today.
But Chanel’s Jewish history is far darker and more complicated.
Pierre Wertheimer became Coco Chanel’s business partner in Parfums Chanel in 1924. During the Nazi occupation of France, after the Wertheimers fled the country, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel attempted to use antisemitic Aryanization laws to gain control of the perfume business from them.
The Wertheimers, however, had already transferred control of their interests to French businessman Félix Amiot in an effort to protect them.
Chanel’s attempt failed.
The Wertheimers eventually returned to France, and Chanel remains controlled by Pierre Wertheimer’s grandsons.
This season, Chanel will once again be one of the biggest shows on the Paris Fashion Week calendar.
During Paris Fashion Week, millions of people will recognize names like Chloé, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, ELLE and Chanel without necessarily knowing the Jewish stories woven into their histories: the Jewish woman from Alexandria who founded Chloé, the Israeli designer who helped revive Lanvin, the Jewish designer who brought ready-to-wear to Louis Vuitton, the Jewish journalist who founded ELLE, or the Wertheimer family whose history with Chanel stretches back more than a century.
The more I research Jewish fashion history, the more I notice how often these stories are hiding behind names we already know.
So while the fashion world watches what is new in Paris this week, I’ll also be thinking about the Jewish history behind the runway.
