Winter fashion season in Paris as you would expect, is brimming with top designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Dior, and Stella McCartney, all showing their latest work to a high-brow crowd of fashion reporters and buyers. There is a mix of well-attended catwalks and shows, as well as a wide range of smaller shows covering couture accessories, footwear, and fashion such as Atmosphere D’Hiver, Paris Sur Mode, Premiere Classe, and Tranoi. But within the midst of the bustle, there is one small trade show Rendez-Vous from March 2-5, that offers up streetwear brands showcased in two locations in the 10^th arrondissement, Le Passage du Desir, and the very cool historic building Le Tapis Rouge, which is reminiscent of a Parisian boudoir. In Le Tapis Rouge were 3 floors of high-end street “ready-to-wear” brands, including Surface to Air, H&M award winner the Swedish brand MiniMarket, Opening Ceremony from New York, United Bamboo, former Levi’s Europe creative director and his GaryHarveyCreative’s recycled denim and newspaper couture, and hot new labels such as Art Point from Moscow, and Masagon from Japan. Here’s what we discovered:

Surface to Air is one of the originators of Rendez-Vous who started the show 6 years ago and has now grown in include 160 international designers, plus music from the famous PIAS, and sharp titles from the best bookstore in Paris, 107 Rivoli--all in an attempt to find a place that was outside of the trappings and clichés of Paris Fashion Week. Surface to Air, which is also known as a unique “non-concept” concept store and graphic design collective, is founded by a group of English and Americans that has expanded now from Paris to Sao Paulo, London, and New York. At Rendez-Vous, they premiered their own line of women’s and men’s apparel and footwear, including a shiny tailored black puffy jacket with fur collar, plaid button-downs that look New England with a punk twist, T-shirts with their notable Surface to Air graphics and signature crossed femur bones and feathered circle wreath, their notable red men’s jacket with a similar Members Only vibe, and sweater hoodies in knit wool and even cashmere. Surface to Air will also be selling online in the near future. (www.s2astudio.com)

GaryHarveyCreative, one of the only couture brands present, included an artistic showcase of recycled ballgowns and dresses, including the Denim Dress made of 42 pairs of Levi 501’s in various shades of indigo; the Military “Fishtail” Cocktail Dress made from 28 army jackets in shades of olive green camo; the Newspaper Dress from 30 copies of the Financial Times; the Mac Dress from 18 Burberry Mac trenchcoats; and the Baseball Puffball Dress made from 26 nylon Baseball jackets, among others. Gary Harvey is the former creative director of Levi Strauss Europe and Dockers, and with this new line took his inspirations from the silhouettes and techniques used in vintage couture as well as recycled materials.

MiniMarket from Sweden, is the two-time winner of the H&M awards presented to top up-and-coming designers by the fast-fashion big box retailer that’s invading America, as well as the winner of the Swedish Elle Magazine award for best new designer. MiniMarket started as a concept store with 3 sisters who created specific women’s pieces to round out their store’s and other designer’s collections. With their 3^rd own collection, which showcased at Rendez-Vous, they showcased unique concepts in women’s business attire with a street attitude, including onesies and suits with bibs, ruffled, striped shirt collar button-downs, and long cashmere and wool sweaters. Their line can now be found in 11 countries, including New York at Opening Ceremony.

Opening Ceremony, the store from New York and agency, as we wrote about in “A Welcoming Ceremony for Proenza Schouler for Target” in February, just came off of a heavy press month during New York Fashion Week for their Target and Proenza Schouler collaboration at their store. In Paris, they not only showed their own collection, but also other lines that they carry including United Bamboo. The Proenza Schouler for Target debut marked a new page in fast-fashion, as the famed downtown boutique Opening Ceremony cleared its stock of hi-end designers in exchange for Target's retail-ready line from February 2-7^th. What was most notable about  this high-end fashion and mass retail collaboration (also known as masstige in Europe) apart from those before it is the implementation: Traditionally, collaborations between designers and mass retailers have launched in their respective retail venues; Izaac Mizrahi for Target launched at Target, Karl Lagerfeld for H&M was released at H&M. In the case of Proenza Schouler for Target the collection debuted at Opening Ceremony in an attempt to present a Target product in a more credible and fashionable venue. Opening Ceremony hosts emerging international designers, taking its name from the world Olympics, and as they told us at Rendez-Vous, don’t show at U.S. fashion trade shows because even though they are a New York brand, their target audience is European.

Other stand-outs from Rendez-Vous included Art Point out of Moscow. Designer Lena Kvadrat takes traditional men’s garments and recreates them for women, such as long shorts that can also be worn as a skirt; pinstriped vests that can also be worn as a T-shirt; apron-like skirts out of men’s inner jacket linings; and men’s flys and zippers as key accessory pieces on women’s skirts, shirts, and jackets. Art Point started in 1993 in Moscow and has since shown at Bread & Butter Barcelona, and picked up notoriety in Moscow of course, as well as Vienna, Berlin, and Japan. Check it out at www.artpoint.ru.

Veja was one of the only sneaker lines present, however they stood out for their “V” designs on the side of their tailored kicks (think classic Asics or Puma), as well as the fair trade ethics that shape the company. Based in Paris and Brazil, the soles on each Vela shoe is made from domestic rubber plantations in fair trade and recycled processes. One of their goals is to create fashionable sneakers that also do their part to save the Amazon rainforest.

Masagon from Japan takes irony, humor, and streetwear to new heights with embroidered slogans in beadwork on sweatshirts and hoodies with sayings such as “Trends are Money,” and “Chanel,” or “Kate Moss” in Japanese double-bite characters. The designer, Masato Hatakeyama from Osaka, clearly has a sense of humor about his work, which also included a walking and singing stuffed doll dressed in a similar tiny collection of apparel of what was represented in his collection. Masato is also a video guy and collects clips of himself wearing, say, his Chanel creation in front of a Chanel store in Japan, then recording the reaction of onlookers.

For more information about Rendez-Vous, go to www.rendez-vous-paris.com. –Photos + story by Tom Wallace