Paris Fashion Week or Paris Dissociation Week?

When couture-meets-crisis.

Paris Fashion Week has always been my escape, a grandiose world where style and fantasy take center stage. But this year, it feels more like a parallel universe. Independent journalist Aaron Parnas has been relentlessly covering breaking news on TikTok in real-time, providing a stark contrast to the opulence unfolding on the runways. With the Trump administration back in power, a deluge of executive orders rolling out, and widespread despair filling our news feeds, the timing of this fashion spectacle feels almost surreal. The contrast is hard to ignore. Fashion reflects the world around us, and right now, that reflection is distorted by uncertainty and tension.

I was talking to a friend recently, and she said, “You know, I feel like I’m just daydreaming to escape all the chaos. The news is so depressing, and I’ve been dressing like I’m always headed to a funeral. I feel kind of numb…like I’m stuck in a movie that never ends.”

As a personal stylist with a medical degree, I do what I always do: I overanalyze things and seek out overlap. Following that chat, I sat with it and thought about dissociation and our current world as of January 27th, 2025.

Here’s a primer.

Dissociation is more than just spacing out during a Zoom meeting or losing yourself in a Netflix binge. According to the American Psychiatric Association, it is a complex mental process that disrupts one's connection to thoughts, memories, and identity. It exists on a spectrum, from the harmless drifting of daydreaming to the severe fragmentation seen in dissociative identity disorder (DID). At its core, it is a coping mechanism triggered by overwhelming stress or trauma.

During periods of political and social upheaval, dissociative tendencies rise. Mental Health America reports that transient dissociation is common, with one-third of people admitting they sometimes feel detached from themselves, as though they were watching their life unfold in a movie. This feeling, this eerie out-of-body experience, seems to be exactly what some of us are experiencing.

Are we in a fashion-fugue state?

The first example that popped into mind this morning while scouring WWD was Jacquemus, the reigning king of monster label Jacquemus. His latest collection, "La Croisière," presented in an intimate 40-person setting in a historic Parisian apartment, leans heavily into the past. Inspired by the golden era of French couturiers like Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, Jacquemus conjured visions of 1950s glamour with circle skirts, immaculately-cinched waists, and a palette reminiscent of Grace Kelly’s closet and Doris Day’s stripes.

Nostalgia wraps itself around fashion, a quiet refuge for the mind in crappy times. When the present feels unbearable, people retreat into the safety of the past. Jacquemus's choice to scale down, eschewing his signature extravagant venues for something more personal, feels like a (maybe unintentional?) sartorial response to the collective desire to dissociate from an overwhelming present. His collection, in a subtle way, invites me to get lost in those “other times”.

While models like the iconic Christy Turlington and Irina Shayk graced the runway in carefully constructed couture, the outside world was bracing for political storms. Each impeccably tailored garment, every nostalgic nod, stood in stark contrast to the labile outside. In the same breath, people consume images of glamorous gowns and breaking news about political unrest. This cognitive dissonance, where beauty and chaos coexist, is, in a way, a flavor of collective dissociation.

As fashion week attendees sipped champagne under the glow of Art Deco lighting, the internet exploded with discourse on war, social justice, and economic instability. Toggling between these two worlds has become almost second nature, a modern manifestation of the dissociative experience.

The question remains: is fashion a means of escaping reality, or is it a mirror reflecting our deepest anxieties? Jacquemus’s homage to old-world elegance suggests both. Fashion offers a cocoon, a momentary respite from an increasingly complex world, but it also serves as an archive of the collective consciousness. The silhouettes people gravitate towards, like the hourglass shapes reminiscent of Monroe or the structured blazers borrowed from Americana, speak to a longing for control, for nostalgia, for something tangible in an era defined by instability. And yet, fashion week itself cannot remain impervious to the weight of the world. The applause may be thunderous, but outside the venue, we trot our little leather loafers into bedlam.

Looking at the 1950s, it’s striking how much hasn’t really changed. We’re still navigating global tensions (this time with new players and evolving threats) while consumer culture has only grown louder and more complex. Social movements continue to push for equity and justice, echoing the same fights for civil rights that began DECADES ago. Tech is advancing at an even faster pace, with AI and space exploration shaping the future in ways that feel both thrilling and deeply unsettling. Decolonization’s legacy still lingers in today’s global power dynamics, and the lines between past and present blur more than we’d like to admit. It’s easy to feel like progress moves too slowly, but maybe, like then, we have the chance to steer things toward something better…if we’re willing to put in the work.

As the last model exits the runway and the lights dim at Paris Men’s Fashion Week, we’re left with the stark contrast of couture and crisis, escapism and engagement. And in saunters Paris Haute Couture, in all its grandeur, provides a brief moment to dissociate, but it also compels us to consider the interplay of fashion and reality.

In the end, the runway may not be an escape at all. It may be a reflection, albeit in a gilded, meticulously crafted mirror. We can lean into nostalgia and fantasy or confront the complexities of the present, and fashion, much like psychology, provides a space to explore both.

Feeling the disconnect? Share, share, share!

Hi, I’m Shelley. I’m a personal stylist with a medical background, and I’m curious about the ways fashion and style influence how we feel. I want to explore how clothing connects to our well-being through learning, creativity, and a little inspiration along the way. Follow me here and subscribe to The Basics where you’ll get multimodal content from me twice a week (and a few extras sprinkled in there).