Paris, late September. The streets are clogged with blacked-out SUVs, photographers are swarming outside venues, and someone in a hat that costs more than your car is shouting into a phone. But this year, amid the chaos of Paris Fashion Week, there’s a new star stealing the limelight. Forget the catwalk. The DS N°8 has arrived – and it’s wearing the Paris Fashion Week logo like a designer label stitched across its electric haunches.

DS Automobiles, a brand that’s never been shy about blending French flair with tech-laden wizardry, has been a partner of Paris Fashion Week since 2019. Now it’s doubling down, rolling out a 20-strong fleet of its flagship DS N°8 to ferry fashion’s finest from show to show. Think of it less as a chauffeur car, more as a rolling VIP lounge – with watchstrap-stitched leather seats instead of velvet ropes.

Electric Catwalk

Naturally, these aren’t your average taxis. Every DS N°8 in this fleet is fully electric, with the option of two- or four-wheel drive. Whisper-quiet progress through the cobbled streets of the Marais? Check. Enough torque to outrun a paparazzo scooter? Absolutely. It’s the kind of transport where Anna Wintour can glide between venues in serene silence while the rest of Paris clatters along in a traffic jam.

Details, Darling, Details

Inside, DS has leaned heavily into its obsession with craftsmanship. Pearl stitching on the seats, Clous de Paris guilloché metal trim on the dashboard, and upholstery finished like a luxury watch strap. It’s all very “atelier” – because why stop at tailoring your suit when your car can match it stitch for stitch? This is automotive design that borrows more from haute couture than it does from engineering textbooks.

Theatrics With a Steering Wheel

DS CEO Xavier Peugeot calls the partnership a celebration of “creativity, design and avant-garde.” And you can see why. The DS N°8 isn’t trying to be a German limo with better PR. It’s doing something more French: treating driving as theatre. At Paris Fashion Week, the car becomes part of the spectacle – a mobile runway, a statement of taste, an accessory.

So, what’s the verdict? Is the DS N°8 a fashion accessory on wheels, or a proper car you’d actually want to drive? Well, both. On the one hand, it’s dripping with finery, the sort of machine that feels more at home parked outside a Louis Vuitton show than a supermarket. But on the other, it’s a serious EV, packed with tech, comfortable enough to cross Europe, and distinctive enough to stand out in a sea of identikit SUVs.

In short: if Paris Fashion Week is all about who’s wearing what, then DS just made sure the answer to “who’s driving what” is equally stylish.

Source: Stellantis