France’s First Slow Fashion Week Champions a Simple, Recycled Approach to Fashion

A sailboat was moored on the J4 Esplanade at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (MuCEM), at the foot of Fort Saint-Jean, facing the Pharo Palace, in the Mediterranean city of Marseille. Teenagers dove into the water under the amused gaze of tourists stretched out in the sun. A young man was fishing. It seemed like an ordinary late afternoon. Except that the sailboat was about to host a fashion show. There were no celebrities, no chauffeured SUVs and no influencers being photographed from every angle. Here, there was no intention of copying the codes of a formal Paris Fashion Week. “People are coming in flip-flops,” said Chloé Roques, one of the event’s organizers. This was Slow Fashion Week: a 100% Marseille event.

While the idea of more sustainable fashion has already found its place in other European capitals such as London, Copenhagen and Berlin, this Marseille edition is a first in France. “We’re never the first,” joked the organizer.