The castings at this season’s shows were chock-full of appearances with mannequins from that 1999–2003 era. And Paris was no different. Once voted “Queen of the Catwalk” by British Vogue, Brazilian model Ana Claudia Michels did her runway walk once more when opening for Givenchy’s show. Tisci’s longtime muse, and one of our all-time favorite models, Mariacarla Boscono closed. After taking a one-year hiatus from modeling to focus on studying architecture, Iselin Steiro returned as well, opening for Costume National and walking for Chanel. Salt Lake City native Heidi Mount’s opening and closing spots at Chanel were her biggest runway coup to date, which makes us wonder if a Chanel contract be that far off. Meanwhile, Yulia Kharlapanova might have taken a major tumble at Prada in Milan, but Miuccia still let the Russian brunette do the honors of closing her Miu Miu show. And how could anyone forget the surprise opening and closing casting of supermodels Stephanie Seymour and Naomi Campbell at Hermès? Leave it to the supermodels to show all the teenage newbies who’s boss. But as with every season, Paris births a new runway star, and this season the honors go to Sigrid Agren. The Julia Stegner look-alike hit the ground running opening for big-time shows Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint Laurent, and Alexander McQueen, while snagging the closing slot at Louis Vuitton to boot. And this was her first runway season. Ever. She makes it look too easy.
