Scarves were no longer accessories. They became structure: stitched into long, fluid dresses as if pieced from a dozen vintage squares; reshaped as silky tops; or peeking from the lining of an otherwise plain trench. Even handbags carried scarf fragments as decoration.
Around that anchor, Rider played with contrasts. Seventies flower power re-emerged in psychedelic A-line minis with clean silhouettes, their retro exuberance tempered by modern restraint. Oversize men’s suiting — black, double-breasted, cut with assurance — grounded the collection in sharp tailoring. A maxi skirt, buttoned and unbuttoned to reveal another layer beneath, nodded to both history and invention, elegant and forward at once.
Quirks gave the show its edge: a multicolored banded arm sock, color-blocked panels that signaled the return of a once-maligned trend. These touches recalled the “compellingly unsettling” play with proportion in his debut, suggesting that Rider’s strategy is less about imposing a total new look than about debating inheritance — a generational stance visible across fashion’s current musical-chairs season.
Paris Fashion Week has been marked by an unprecedented number of debuts — Jonathan Anderson at Dior, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Loewe, Miguel Castro Freitas at Mugler, and Matthieu Blazy at Chanel coming on Monday.
For some, the lack of a radical break at LVMH's third biggest fashion house may still frustrate. Rider’s fondness for collage can read as hesitation. Yet Sunday’s show suggested confidence rather than doubt: a designer willing to fold Philo’s female-first minimalism, Slimane’s bourgeois drama and his own preppy past into a coherent new language — one scarf at a time.