PARIS — The Courrèges invitation was a metal Möbius band: no beginning, no end, no inside, no outside. Infinity. Somehow, Nicolas Di Felice used that concept to design a collection of entirely finite clothing. His post-show explanation made infinity dressing sound like a possibility, even as my tiny mind wrestled with his logic. “It’s the notion of evolution,” Di Felice said. “I always started from what I just did.” So Look One was the base of Look Two, Look Two was the base of Look Three and so on. It’s impossible to assess the success of such an effort from 2D runway thumbnails, so you’ll have to take his word for it. And, to be quite honest, the evolution wasn’t remotely obvious while we were watching the show. But what was reinforced is how 41-year-old Di Felice is one of fashion’s deepest thinkers. He’s the full mind/body package, brainiac on the outside, taboo-worshipping sensualist on the inside. And so it was with his latest show.

It began with a solemn all-embracing leather cowl, harking back to a cape from a 1963 collection by Andres Courrèges. The cowl turned into a coat turned into a dress turned into everything that came afterwards. It culminated in dresses that moved up and around and down the body like waves, said Di Felice. Transmogrification was the theme. Bras became collars, collars became straps that suspended slips of dresses. The constant undulating movement of the clothes and their components was designed to duplicate the movement of water. The lapel of a stark black coat unfurled on one shoulder like the curl of a wave.

But the collection also celebrated the patriarchy-defying power of female physicality. True to the original spirit of Courrèges, Di Felice bared the body in audacious ways. His signature bra top looks like the censor’s strip that Instagram insists should cover bare breasts. It harked back to his childhood, when any programming for over-18s was signalled by a white square, un carré blanc, onscreen. That was one sensibility-shaping way to teach a young Walloon what was so right about what was so wrong.

Speaking of white squares, the huge void in the centre of Di Felice’s show space has become an artistic extension of his intent. Last season, it heaved and breathed. This season, it oscillated with thousands of ball bearings making the soothing white noise of waves as they ebbed and flowed. It fed in and out of a dissection of Underworld’s rave anthem “Born Slippy.” Quite stunning.

Later in the day, Di Felice went to see the show of his friend Julien Dossena, who designs Rabanne, the modern incarnation of fashion’s original heavy metal kid. Dossena called his collection Material Girls. Towards the end of the show, Mancunian Model of the Moment Libby Bennett walked in a dress that left flutters of gold leaf all over the catwalk. She was carrying a bag made by Maison Arthus Bertrand from 371 discs of 18 carat gold. No one in the audience could have known, but it was, nevertheless, a moment you might classify as pre-revolutionary, if and when such a moment ever arrives in our ethically stunted era. And I wouldn’t want to impose a political sensibility on Dossena, because he was talking about Todd Haynes’ movie Safe as a reference point, and the idea of a woman sealing herself away from the world in a profoundly paranoic state, wrapped up to protect herself.

Mind you, Dossena’s wrappings were, he said, like the silver foil of a candy, or the layers of paper that encase a gift, or even the transparent wrapping you get on fruit in Japan. He liked the naivete of the idea, but there was obviously something protective about it, like Safe, or even like Paco Rabanne’s original chainmail and armour-influenced looks. I was seeing men’s boxer shorts too, chucked under substantial outerwear. Dossena called it toughness filled with tenderness. The layering was the key. You could take what you wanted from it. Soft banker-stripe blouson on Gigi, metallic geometric breastplate on Loli — that was the Alpha and Omega of Dossena’s Rabanne. It was quite the gamut. I’m not convinced. But still, I want to see more.

Meta will reportedly debut a prototype of its first-ever augmented-reality glasses Wednesday, but before that even happens, it may have already disrupted the eyewear market.

The new glasses — set to be unveiled at Meta’s annual Connect conference for developers — are expected to be capable of imposing a digital layer on the wearer’s physical surroundings. The catch is they aren’t planned to hit the market before 2027, according to a report last month by The Information. Similarly, Snap last week unveiled the latest generation of its AR Spectacles, but only developers who rent them for $99 a month will have access.

The unavailability of these products underscores how distant AR glasses and Mark Zuckerberg’s prophesied metaverse remain. In the meantime, another pair of AR-free Meta eyewear could prove as — or more — pivotal to the rise of smart glasses.

The Ray-Ban Meta glasses created in partnership with EssilorLuxottica have been a bigger hit than the companies themselves anticipated. In a July earnings call, Zuckerberg said demand continued outpacing their ability to build them. Market intelligence firm IDC estimates Meta has shipped more than 700,000 pairs, while Bernstein analyst Luca Solca surmised earlier this year that revenue from the glasses could approach $100 million in EssilorLuxottica’s 2024 fiscal year. Indicating their confidence in the future, Meta and EssilorLuxottica announced a long-term extension of their partnership last week.

The $299 glasses, which are widely available through select EssilorLuxottica retailers including LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut, as well as through the Ray-Ban and Meta websites, could be fairly deemed the first commercially successful smart glasses, marking a potential turning point for a category that the tech world has been trying — and failing — to popularise for more than a decade. If they are the start of a new era, it could signal upheaval for eyewear.

“Mainstream smart glasses are bound to be as disruptive as the rise of smartwatches — and the entry of Big Tech firms is likely to cause more pain than joy to incumbents,” Solca wrote in a June research note.

The product that sparked the turbulence in the watch market was the Apple Watch. It took time to gather momentum after its initial launch in 2015, years after the first rudimentary smartwatches first defined the category. But by 2019 Apple was estimated to be selling more units than the entire Swiss watch industry. It wasn’t until 2023 that Morgan Stanley decided the Apple Watch was no longer a threat to Swiss timepieces after the industry realigned around higher-end products.

Solca noted that there aren’t perfect parallels to be drawn between watches and eyewear, but the point stood that glasses are “destined to become the second major personal product category to be digitally disrupted,” largely because there remains need for a product that lets consumers access the internet while on the move. Phones are currently our preferred mobile device, but they occupy our hands and require our focus to the exclusion of our environment, which can be inconvenient or even dangerous at times. Glasses provide an ideal form for this new technology.

The key question is whether the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which offer capabilities like high-quality audio and photography in classic Ray-Ban styles, are the equivalent of the Apple Watch in smart glasses.

Eyewear’s Big Disruptor?

“I don’t share the premise,” Solca wrote in an email. In his view, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, while an “excellent approximation,” are still too limited in their abilities. When the disruptive new entrant does appear, it will likely have hundreds or thousands of apps available. He also expects AR will be key, combined with AI. “The revolution will come from aesthetically and culturally acceptable products with significant functionality,” he said. That could still be many years away.

There are a number of things the Ray-Ban Meta glasses already get right, according to owners who rave about them online.

“They are practical and they’re stylish,” said Michael Miraflor, chief brand officer at venture-capital firm Hannah Grey VC, who bought a pair earlier this year after reading reviews and seeing people wearing them at events. The glasses are a companion to his phone, not a replacement for it. He uses them frequently to take calls, pointing to the audio quality and saying he now reaches for them about half the time in situations where he would have previously defaulted to his Apple AirPods.

Others, meanwhile, have praised the glasses’ camera, which can be used to take photos, video or even to live stream directly to Instagram. Earlier this year, Meta also introduced multimodal AI features that allow the glasses to visually recognise objects and provide information on them. Miraflor said he wouldn’t rely on the AI for anything critical (and Wired detailed its struggles to translate languages). But it generally works in his experience, and he likes being able to get information on things like trees or landmarks while hiking around Los Angeles, without having to take out his phone.

“The core functionality of the device is pretty good,” he said. “It’s way better than just ‘good enough.’”

Maybe the most compelling feature, however, is that they just look like a pair of Ray-Bans.

Previous generations of smart glasses tended to have either minimal capabilities, or else they were bulky in order to house all the components needed to make them work. The first-generation Ray-Ban Stories managed to package everything into a regular-looking pair of sunglasses, but functionality was still limited.

The Ray-Ban Meta glasses have begun addressing both issues, with better audio, a better camera and AI — and more capabilities and frame options still likely to come in the future. It’s easy to imagine EssilorLuxottica extending the partnership to other brands in its portfolio, too.

But while the company looks to be setting itself up to be part of any disruption by smart glasses, its safety isn’t guaranteed. Solca pointed out that tech giants like Apple, which recently unveiled its first headset, could choose to enter the smart glasses category independently, knocking even incumbents like EssilorLuxottica off balance. The eyewear giant might be hedging against a scenario where it faces a Big Tech competitor on its own through its long-term deal with Meta.

In an emailed statement, Rocco Basilico, EssilorLuxottica’s chief wearables officer, said they’re leading the eyewear industry into the future through the deal. “Our Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are a testament of creating a successful new category in eyewear and it’s only the beginning of where the partnership can go. Just as smart watches revolutionised the way we interact with technology, we see smart glasses as an opportunity to blend style with functionality thus creating more social acceptability.”

“Social acceptability” could prove difficult to ensure as companies try to enable AR. To fit the processors, sensors, displays and batteries — not to mention speakers if you want audio — requires a ludicrously capacious frame, Snap’s new AR glasses being an illustration of the challenge. (A former Snap design engineer who worked on the glasses called them “obviously bad.”)

Miraflor said he wouldn’t personally want AR capabilities at the expense of the look of the glasses. He’s bought other extended-reality devices in the past and has either returned them or left them collecting dust on a shelf. In fact, one thing he likes about the current iteration of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses is that they aren’t trying to do too much, keeping the Ray-Ban form factor intact and the glasses uncomplicated.

“If they shrink that AR functionality down to the point where they can hack all of that processing power into something that does look like a regular pair of sunglasses, then sure, I’ll try it out,” he said. “But I wouldn’t compromise the form factor to fit in something that is a bit more advanced that is not really that practical for day-to-day use.”

Italy’s antitrust agency has launched an investigation into a Dublin-based company that operates Shein’s website and app over possible misleading environmental claims made on the fast-fashion retailer’s website.

The investigation targets Infinite Styles Services CO. Limited and accuses Shein’s website of trying “to convey an image of production and commercial sustainability of its garments through generic, vague, confusing and/or misleading environmental claims,” Italy’s antitrust authority said in a statement.

Shein said it is “ready to cooperate openly with relevant Italian authorities, providing the necessary support and information to address any inquiries.”

The Italian authority said that some of the information on the clothing collection ‘evoluSHEIN,’ declared to be sustainable, could mislead consumers about the amount of “green” fabrics used, while also failing to inform them about the fact the garments cannot be further recycled.

It also said that Shein’s website appears to emphasise a commitment to decarbonisation which seems to be contradicted by the increase in greenhouse gas emissions shown in Shein’s sustainability reports for 2022 and 2023.

Founded in China, Shein is known for its cheap tops and dresses. Its treatment of workers and environmental record have come under increased scrutiny following reports that it could list its shares in London.

Under European Union anti-greenwashing regulations that came into force this year and will apply in all member states in two years’ time, companies are banned from making vague environmental claims about their products, like labelling them “energy efficient” or “environmentally friendly” if they don’t provide evidence to back them up.

Italy’s antitrust body, in addition to dealing with competition issues, is also in charge of consumer protection. It has recently opened investigations into online search giant Google and luxury brands Armani and Dior.

Under Italian legislation, companies found in breach of consumer rights rules face fines ranging from 5,000 euros to 10 million euros ($5,590 - $11.2 million).

Shein has its Europe, Middle East and Africa headquarters in Dublin. Its global headquarters are in Singapore.

By Helen Reid and Elisa Anzolin; Editing by Keith Weir and Mark Potter

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