SEASON of CHANGE

It's been billed as FASHION'S GREAT RESET: more than a dozen DESIGNER DEBUTS across some of the INDUSTRY'S most HISTORIC HOUSES. Will it change ANYTHING? EVERYTHING?

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In all my years writing about fashion, I don't think a season has passed without a reader—usually a man—writing to ask why catwalk models look so sober. Why don't they smile? Sometimes I can't help but focus on the misogyny embedded in that question. Why do you expect these young women to smile for your pleasure? After all, models are performers tasked with bringing a collection to life. And sometimes a designer's intent is for a collection to exude toughness, intensity, or strength. A Cheshire Cat grin wouldn't communicate the right message. Often, the answer is much simpler: It's hard to smile convincingly on command. Countless awkward family portraits can attest to that struggle.

But Awar Odhiang's expression as she walked the closing steps in Matthieu Blazy's Chanel debut read as both earnest and effervescent. The young Canadian model of South Sudanese descent moved with her arms outstretched toward the heavens as she made one final circle inside Paris's Grand Palais. Her shimmering white blouse billowed as she turned, and her floor-length skirt had the celebratory spirit of a confetti explosion.

People were moved by it. I was moved by it. This young Black immigrant woman had the audacity to exude unbridled joy during a nerve-wracking debut, when a billion-dollar business is in flux, while the world is seemingly going mad.