Sawt Falasteen - Fecal Matter makes a splash at Paris Fashion Week

After meeting in fashion school in Montreal, Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran set up their label 10 years ago in opposition to the idea of the clothing industry as a place of beauty and aspirational consumption.

Interested in the "post-human aesthetic", the duo also built up a large following on Instagram with photo shoots featuring them in heavy Gothic and extraterrestrial-influenced make-up and clothing, with shaved heads and eyebrows.

Speaking after the show in an ornate 19th-century Parisian hotel close to the Champs Elysees, Bhaskaran said that when he and Dalton started together "nobody really understood our esthetic."

"It took so long for people to accept what we do and consider it beautiful. And I think there's been a huge evolution," he added.

Friday's collection, the first that will be mass produced, featured models with blacked-out eyeballs, white facepaint and smeared red lipstick.

"This collection is about being fearless in your identity. It's about walking into a room with your head held high, even if nobody wants you there," the designers wrote in notes accompanying the show.

Matieres Fecales was chosen as a name to ensure that people who bought their clothing only wanted it for the design, rather than the name on the label.

Rose told reporters that they would try to stay true to their original ethos, even as they become more deeply drawn into the profit-oriented world of mainstream fashion.

"I think every day we somehow have the confidence to walk out and look like this and do that," she said. "So it's the same with the industry. We're not going to change just because of who's sitting in the front row and all that."

The label produced a small collection for Selfridges in London in 2019 and took another major step in its development by tieing up with the influential Dover Street Market retailer to make Friday's collection.

The range was more commercially-minded than the one-of-kind works the pair used to sell online, with apparent influences from US designer Rick Owens.

It featured leather and shearling jackets, a grey mohair dress, as well as an almost classic-looking trench coat.

- Givenchy debut -

Elsewhere in more classic Paris Fashion Week, British designer Sarah Burton made her debut as chief designer at Givenchy, going back to the fashion label's 1950s origins for inspiration for her Fall/Winter 2025 collection.

Burton, who was appointed in September last year, sent out models in mostly black, white and grey, in overcoats and jackets with sculptural silhouettes that mixed mid-century elegance with modern oversized style.

"To go forward, you have to go back to the beginning," she was quoted as saying in notes accompanying the show.

Burton, a down-to-earth 51-year-old from northern England, made her name as creative director at Alexander McQueen in London after taking over following the death of its founder in 2010.

After shows by Issey Miyake, Giambattista Valli and Kenzo, British designer Victoria Beckham is set to bring the day to a close.

Beckham and her footballer husband David attended a star-studded fundraising dinner at the Louvre Museum earlier in the week.

The luxury clothing market is struggling with slackening demand, most significantly in China, but also in developed markets where inflation and economic uncertainty have taken a toll.

N.Shalabi--SF-PST