The Monocle Minute

The most recent round of autumn/winter 2025 fashion weeks (starting in Copenhagen in January and moving on to New York, London, Milan and now Paris) has left everyone with a lukewarm feeling. Amid a tendency to play it safe, notable absentees and behind-the-scenes executive reshuffles continue to distract from the collections on display. “What happened to the dream?” a buyer asked me.

Yet Paris is proving that there’s still room for risk-taking and design that evokes more than tepid applause. The French capital’s fashion week opened on Monday afternoon with shows by some of the industry’s most exciting new names, including Marie Adam-Leenaerdt. The Belgian designer invited guests to homeware studio Galerie Paradis and presented experimental constructions, sharp suiting and multifunctional items – all destined, much like the design objects on display, to become collectors’ items. Warsaw-based Magda Butrym also put on an impressive display that highlighted her commitment to craft and her ability to create some of the most luxurious leather outerwear on the market: many items featured hand-crocheting by the brand’s growing team of Polish artisans.

The week’s grand opening act took place at the Tuileries Garden, where Maria Grazia Chiuri presented her latest collection for Dior on a runway set designed by artist Robert Wilson. The range brought together many of the signatures that she has established over her nine-year tenure at the house: veiled hats, saddle bags worn crossbody to allow freedom of movement, intricate lace sets and Bar Jackets. Chiuri’s approach to creative direction is worthy of praise: she has established a recognisable design vocabulary, focused on pleasing her end customer rather than faceless online audiences, and used the brand’s large-scale shows as an opportunity to commission and show off the works of craft communities and artists from across the globe. Even when the works on display proved divisive, they started conversations – something that is much needed in an industry where people have become afraid of expressing an opinion.

As a new crop of designers prepares to take on creative-director positions at leading fashion houses – Sarah Burton will make her debut at Givenchy tomorrow, for example – I’m hoping for more personalities finding expression on the runway, fresher perspectives on getting dressed and even a healthy dose of debate.

Natalie Theodosi is Monocle’s fashion director. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

The stalls are full of nationally branded merchandise, suited tourism ministers are holding court and a mariachi band has attracted a crowd in the foyer (writes Carlota Rebelo): it’s the Internationale Tourismus-Börse (ITB) Berlin, for which the world’s travel tastemakers descend on the German capital. The industry’s leading trade fair opened its doors on Tuesday with a sense of momentum – it was fully booked and featuring a record 5,800 exhibitors from more than 170 countries. Under the banner “The world of travel lives here”, ITB Berlin reaffirmed its role as the most important stage for the future of tourism. On the convention floor, destinations were displayed by region alongside key market segments, from business and luxury travel to the fast-growing realm of medical and wellness tourism.

Albania took centre stage as this year’s “host” country with a large dose of national dress, dance and song. However, the spotlight also shone on emerging destinations vying for attention: the Democratic Republic of Congo put its natural beauty on show with a strong ecotourism push; Peru positioned its rich culinary heritage as a major draw; and Guatemala’s message of hope and transformation made a compelling case for its place on the travel map. With its finger ever on the pulse, ITB Berlin once again proved why it remains the global travel industry’s barometer.

Since its launch in 1964, the shinkansen, Japan’s high-speed bullet train, has been in the hands of a succession of homegrown designers, including Eiji Mitooka and Ken Okuyama (writes Fiona Wilson). Now a non-Japanese designer has taken on the challenge. East Japan Railway this week revealed the first images of its new generation E10 Tohoku Shinkansen, whose exterior livery and interiors are the work of London design consultancy Tangerine.

The mid-green exterior is inspired by the northern mountain forests and coastlines that this train will serve, while the interior has plenty of luggage space, power outlets and dedicated seats with partitions for those who wish to work. The train also has the latest earthquake-resistance engineering and a top speed of 320km/h. “With its blend of Japanese spirit, innovation and user-centric design, the E10 is poised to redefine high-speed rail travel for decades to come,” says Tangerine’s chief creative officer, Matt Round. The only drawback for eager passengers is that they will have to wait a while to try the new service: the trains are expected to go into service in 2030.

M International, the new English-language edition of M Le Magazine du Monde, promises to bring the best journalism published in the weekend supplement of France’s newspaper of record to readers across the Anglophone world. After a packed launch party in Paris on Monday, M’s editorial director, Marie-Pierre Lannelongue, sat down with Monocle’s Paris bureau chief, Simon Bouvier, to discuss the inaugural issue and how it fits in with Le Monde’s plans to reach a broader audience.

In 2019 you published a one-off collector’s edition of ‘M le Magazine du Monde’ in English. How did that inform the launch of ‘M International’?
The 2019 edition was beautiful but it was an object more than a magazine. We were not ready and didn’t have this plan to develop the brand at the time. Now, two and a half years after we launched Le Monde in English, we can offer our readers the same quality of journalism and writing as we give our French audience.

What makes for a good ‘M’ story?
It can be on any topic but the quality of writing needs to be very high. Reading M should be a good experience. In M International, we have a big story about a monastery that Le Corbusier designed in the 1950s, where there are a few rooms that guests can stay in. After reading the article my dream is now to spend a weekend there.

How are your plans to reach a wider Anglophone audience going?
We are growing at a good pace. With Le Monde in English, we are now able to translate up to 60 per cent of Le Monde’s content with a team of English-native editors, journalists and translators. In addition to two print M International magazines per year, we will have a newsletter called A Letter from Paris, written by me, to keep our community engaged between issues.

Listen to Lannelongue’s full interview this Saturday on‘The Stack’, Monocle Radio’s dedicated show for print journalism. And pick up a copy of the issue from Monocle’s new Paris outpost at 16 Rue Bachaumont.

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