Over in London, a strong summer message came in the form of Acne’s thick flourescent invitation card, featuring a graphic debossed font
For Paris, Rochas used a varnish treatment on textured card to create the ’vinyl effect’ black strip
Dries Van Noten
Loose calligraphy-style writing marked out Haider Ackermann’s gold foil printed card
Kanye West’s first fashion week invitation was to the point with its centralised debossed text
Hermès
A discreet die-cut ’H’ from Hermès
Mimicking earlier invitation styles, Neil Barrett produced a thick green card ’envelope’ printed with black foil, with a smaller card pull-out which was blind embossed
Rick Owens used three different printing techniques to create three abstract patterns in varying rectangular dimensions
The puzzle-like card from Comme des Garçons for its new Paris Trading Museum required flipping back and forth between two sides of glossy white paper to get all the details - which were divided between two sides of the sheet
Comme des Garçons
Made to look like an artwork, Chanel’s pastel acquatic came on heavy watercolour paper
Chanel
A die-cut geometric creation from Roger Vivier
John Galliano’s out of focus rose printed on a card came in the form of a giant postage stamp, complete with perforated edges
Junya Watanabe’s minimalist design, incorporating black print on black thin paper, folded out into a poster
Junya Watanabe
Another poster-like offering from Viktor & Rolf, embossed with a V&R stamp...
... this time folding out into a square sheet
Kudos to Paco Rabanne for producing this very sleek brushed aluminium plate
The ambiguous face on Céline’s invite got the silver metallic foil treatment...
... and came printed on corrugated card
A tracing paper envelope from Louis Vuitton...
... conceals an oversized Louis Vuitton leather luggage tag...
... with show details hidden under the tag’s flaps
The Louis Vuitton Art of Fashion exhibition invitation - with just a hint of detail in its blind debossed cover - looked pretty understated. But things aren’t always what they seem...
... it opens up to reveal a flourescent pink insert
A powdery blue variation on Miu Miu’s perfectly assembled show stationary
Miu Miu
Miu Miu
In Milan, Roman fashion house Fendi presented the ultimate lesson in monochromatic graphic
Meanwhile, invitations for the Fendi O’ party arrived complete with a CD mix taster of sounds that were to come during the course of the evening’s events
Fendi O’: On the reverse, the event details came emblazoned in a glossy gold print
Prada’s invitation was deceivingly simple at first glance...
... but a clever optical illusion allowed the text - printed upside down and back to front - to be read coherently through the use of reflective mirrored card
Jil Sander used of blind-embossing on thick square card
Jil Sander
A colour block hit from the Marni invitation...
... which unfolds into an A3-sized poster
Marni
Our invitation to visit the new Gucci Museo in Florence came complete with a gold foiled personalised train ticket
Gucci Museo
Over in London, a strong summer message came in the form of Acne’s thick flourescent invitation card, featuring a graphic debossed font
Acne
Burberry sent out its usual pack: an envelope which opened to reveal credit card-sized card printed with the show details - this time in wood
Burberry
Margaret Howell chose blue, grey and black shades for her invites this season, with a pop-out black foil-stamped print appearing over the card
A colourful painted print transferred onto matt silver foil for the Mary Katrantzou show
A simple offering from Pringle of Scotland, which made use of an embossed pattern on heavy white board for a tactile effect
Using the pre-cinema French technique of Ombra Cinema (not dissimilar to the W* 139 Guest Editors issue cover featuring Robert Wilson’s eye-popping portraits), the DKNY invitation revealed a series of moving images of a girl crossing a road, controlled by the opening and closing of the card
DNKY
For 3.1 Phillip Lim, a subtle tactile effect was achieved with embossed text on a linen-like overlay. This folded back to reveal a heavy textured card
The Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas for Y-3 invitation incorporated a screen-printed blue text on a red fabric-like card
Y-3
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Year in review: top 10 design stories of 2024Wallpaper* magazine's 10 most-read design stories of 2024 whisk us from fun Ikea pieces to the man who designed the Paris Olympics, and 50 years of the Rubik's Cube
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Sharon Smith's Polaroids capture 1980s New York nightlifeIDEA Books has launched a new monograph of Smith’s photographs, titled Camera Girl and edited by former editor-in-chief of LIFE magazine, Bill Shapiro
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A multifaceted Beverly Hills house puts the beauty of potentiality in the frameA Beverly Hills house in Trousdale, designed by Robin Donaldson, brings big ideas to the residential scale
