Fashion's avant garde is at its most creative when it looks to the outside world for inspiration. For next summer's ready-to wear-looks, Victor Weinsanto, responsible for the daring looks we saw at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, pays tribute to drag queens. Vincent Pressiat and Kevin Germanier, an upcycling evangelist who oversaw the closing ceremony costumes, embrace a similar celebratory aesthetic. Plus we meet Swedish designer Ellen Hodakova Larsson, the latest winner of the LVMH prize.

A celebration of the body, dance, art and sport! At Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri installs Italian archer-artist Sagg Napoli in a long glass cage. Her collection is an ode to the Amazons, a reference to the designs created by Christian Dior in the 1950s. For his “Impro” collection, designer Alain Paul unleashes the bodies of male and female dancers on the stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet. Last but not least, Magda Butrym awakens and reveals Polish fashion in an understated presentation. FRANCE 24 takes you to Paris Fashion Week.

At the Rodin Museum Dior presents its latest collection against a décor comprised of mosaics by the New York-based feminist artist Faith Ringgold. At the Salle Pleyel, Stéphane Rolland celebrates the poetry of Jacques Prévert and Brassaï, while at the Palais de Tokyo Japanese couturier Yuima Nakazato works with Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Couture may officially be considered an applied art, rather than fine art, but it nonetheless has the power to elicit intense emotions.

Can fashion transform reality, or is it more a question of how the real world influences fashion? Dior's response lies in a deeply feminist collection, inspired by the Swinging Sixties, when Marc Bohan was at the helm of the label. South African brand Maxhosa resurrects ancient Xhosa motifs. Mossi, through his clothes and fashion school in the eastern Paris suburbs, hopes to give disenfranchised young people a dream to aim for. All are searching for the holy grail: fashion that's both beautiful and meaningful.

At the campus of the French Fashion Institute, 27 design students from 13 different countries are gearing up to present their year's work before a highly influential audience. The stakes are high: these students are poised to compete with fellow graduates from the prestigious Central Saint Martins school in London. But there's no denying that France still plays an outsized role on the international stage when it comes to fashion, as evidenced by the likes of designers Weinsanto, Pressiat and Alain Paul. FRANCE 24 went to check out their ready-to-wear shows.

Stella McCartney, Marine Serre and Lilia Litkovska are three designers united in their belief that fashion, a notoriously polluting industry that often encourages excessive consumption, can itself be part of the solution. Through their latest ready-to-wear collections for next autumn and winter they showcase more sustainable modes of production, and advocate for fashion that has both style and heart. FRANCE 24 went to check out their Paris shows.

What exactly goes on in designers’ heads? Wim Wenders claims that Yohji Yamamoto has the power to heal people without the need for a therapist’s chair. Meanwhile Jeanne Friot delves into her own lesbian love story. Stéphane Rolland invites students from two Paris fashions schools on stage, as his collection questions the relationship between East and West. And Julien Fournié embraces the Hitchcock heroine aesthetic to bring down the patriarchy. 

Haute couture represents the apotheosis of fashion. Thousands of hours of work can go into a single item, destined to be worn just once. Couture offers a window into a multi-billion-euro industry. But it's also a pillar of French soft power, which was perfectly expressed this year at Dior, Imane Ayissi, Sara Chraïbi and Simone Rocha for Jean Paul Gaultier. FRANCE 24 takes you to check out the runway shows.

Stella McCartney, Laurence Airline, Vaillant Studio and Litkovska are four fashion labels founded and run by women. Inspired by a desire to always strive for better, these designers propose solutions to the biggest challenges facing fashion today – everything from overconsumption and textile pollution to convoluted supply chains. All four women know that, at its best, fashion can also be used as a weapon for good. FRANCE 24 went to meet them and check out their latest ready-to-wear shows in Paris.

Japanese stylists have been making their mark on the Paris fashion scene since the 1980s, and continue to prove their mastery of the art of merging form and movement. Yohji Yamamoto, Yusuke Takahashi for CFCL, Maiko Kurogouchi and Satoshi Kondo for Issey Miyake – all these designers have a knack for taking the pulse of the planet, and, in turn, proposing new ways of dressing. We went to meet them in this edition of Fashion.