Cosmic Voices: A Style Aesthetic

Elie Saab

2013-03-06T19:16:00.005Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Elegant, chic and ultrasexy are all words Elie Saab is well-versed in. While each could describe the numerous red-carpet-ready dresses with pretty embellishments that the designer showed for fall, it was his continued step up in daywear that was most noteworthy — this time with a pleasant mix focused on solid colors.

Many such day dresses came sculpted to the body with a zipper down the back; others featured a structured bodice and a full skirt just above the knee. The silhouettes were quite sophisticated and are sure to please his loyal consumer set.

Somewhat buried in the collection were two unexpected looks: a black sweater-skirt combo in a matching moody blue floral pattern, and a capelike coat over top over ultraskinny pants, all in black. Clearly more casual, they didn’t quite mesh with the rest of the lineup, yet provided a glimpse into just how willing Saab is to push his day look with a younger vibe. It was a refreshing move and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the future.

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Miu Miu

2013-03-06T14:06:00.002Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Miuccia Prada is typically less outspoken about the fashion fatigue induced by producing two major collections per season than, say, her pal Marc Jacobs, who has taken to wearing his pajamas around town — at Miu Miu, he was still sporting the ones in which he took his Vuitton bow.

But even Prada is not immune to the grind. When prompted for the requisite inspiration sound bite after the show, the designer began by saying that her phenomenal Prada collection ate into her mental space for Miu Miu. “After the last show, having worked so much for a month and a half [on Prada], I just wanted the visual,” she said. “Something sporty but it had to become frivolous and romantic at the end. The end is completely another story, but I didn’t have time to analyze it. It’s just instinct and what you see.”

If she was pressed for time or drained of creative energy, it didn’t show on the runway, where impulse drove her to a great, new-for-Miu Miu silhouette of long coats and sweaters worn over longer skirts that revealed the ankle.

The look seemed rooted in conservative, early 1900s nostalgia, on which Prada riffed with deft mix of serious fashion and cartoon madness. One ensemble — a fitted black jacket with big round buttons and orange astrakhan collar, worn over a polka-dot skirt with an orange ostrich carpet bag and silver Mary Janes — brought to mind Mary Poppins. The outerwear/skirt pairings, which went on to include terrific clingy ribbed knits zipped over striped skirts in combinations of red-and-black or yellow-and-black, triggered a memory of Jean Paul Gaultier in the Eighties.

But there was plenty of Prada’s own history, too, in the sporty jackets and belted bodices cut out of quilted navy blue nylon with pronounced zippers, big pockets and ribbed knit cuffs and hems. The adorably clownish motifs that were used sparingly as styling effects at first, escalated to full looks by the finale of chicly cut coats in pink, yellow and baby blue.

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Louis Vuitton

2013-03-06T11:51:00.001Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

There’s grunge and there’s grunge. Deep into his contract negotiations with Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs chose to revisit the theme that years ago catapulted him from must-see wunderkind status into legendary unemployment.

Whether during the design process for the current collection he saw irony or provocation in that connection, who knows? A full 20 years have passed. Grunge is no longer the latest obsession of disaffected youth, and Jacobs, no longer young (his big 5-0 hits next month). Yet many of the same influences continue to inform his aesthetic.

That said, in recent years he’s preferred not to invoke the G-word — a rare self-edit he dispensed with during a preview on Tuesday evening. “I don’t want to use certain words, but…” he said, “there’s a kind of decadent, eccentric, grungy glamour going on here.” It proved masterful transformation of a concept — or elements of a concept — into something light years removed from its expected context. In his show on Wednesday, Jacobs veered far from the gritty, undone reality of the genre into a land that was luxe, sophisticated and refined, perhaps despite itself. And this being Paris, he worked in what he called “a dirty Left Bank feeling.”

While his Perry Ellis grunge was feisty and fun (at least pre-pink slip), this was lyrical and melancholy, picking up on the wistfulness of Jacobs’ New York runway. There, he showed under an enormous, imposing sun; here, he moved his story line inside, into a circular “hotel” constructed within the vast tent pitched in a Louvre courtyard. The wallpapered corridor housed 50 closed doors (one for each of his years, he said), which the models opened and exited. He thus turned the audience into a conclave of involuntary but insatiable voyeurs, as each “room” featured projections of hotel guests lounging and getting dressed, unaware of the scores of peering eyes.

It played like a film noir jewel, its multiple leading ladies each with a mysterious backstory of her own. And, along with her backstory, a choppy Anna Magnani coif and a fabulous outfit. As in New York, Jacobs focused on the intimate sartorial gesture, here slips, pajamas, robes de chambre. These were paired with some of the season’s best coats and jackets, worn in oddball combinations — proportions deliberately awkward, colors sometimes off. The pieces were invariably gorgeous, the results of that happy pairing of a great talent and mega resources: a herringbone pattern made entirely of embroidered sequins; voluptuous robes lined in marabou. Some coats came in cashmere with deep borders of dégradé sequins; others, in thick silk printed to resemble English tweeds. Some details remained invisible from the runway.

One fabric was hand-frayed to resemble flocking, while others featured floral prints and lace that were actually meticulously embroidered feathers. The latter came in on a pair of delicate dresses, one worn by Kate Moss, whose cinematic look added another layer of drama. Of course, any heroine worth her Vuitton billing has a great bag. This time, there wasn’t a logo in sight; rather, Jacobs interpreted the house’s classic shapes in tony materials — croc, python, mink and hand-curled goose feathers — often finished with carved ebony or wooden handles.

The show pulsed with emotion. Lest anyone wonder how personal it felt to Jacobs, he took his bow in silk pajamas (these, in a print by the Chapman Brothers, from Vuitton’s recent men’s collection), which have replaced the kilt as his daywear of choice. Suggestive of the aforementioned decadence and eccentricity? Sure. But those are partial descriptives. Jacobs is also a savvy designer who here delivered a lineup of stellar commercial clothes.

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Alexander McQueen

2013-03-05T20:50:00.002Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Hallelujah! That word applies not just to the ecclesiastical motif of Sarah Burton’s exquisite Alexander McQueen presentation, but to what a designer can do with just ten looks and a concept in her head.

Burton decided early on to forego a full-scale show in favour of an intimate presentation due to the recent birth of her twins. She showed in an ornate salon of the Opéra Comique, her high-shine, modernist cube seating in serene contrast to the room’s froufrou murals and gilding.

As for her theme, Burton is either prescient or fashion’s fastest worker, as who didn’t connect her theme, the sartorial trappings of “the high church,” to the papal conclave? Her show notes referenced “from communion gowns to cardinals’ robes.” (And with good reason. Have you ever noticed the laces on view during a procession of the cardinals? Amazing.) In five pairs of related looks, she presented a lavish feast in which pristine communicants in exquisite organdy lace gave way to sensual Swiss Guards and a twosome whose pearl-encrusted, cutaway habits suggested they were sent to the nunnery to atone for their sexual sins, (said atonement a work in progress, from the looks of things).

She finished with a white-and-gold homage to the Virgin Queen, which referenced both Elizabeth I and various religious iconography. Burton’s tiny grouping awed with its beauty and the craft on display. It also whetted the appetite for what commercial glories the showroom may hold. Almost at the end of a seemingly endless season, countless other designers could take a lesson.

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Valentino

2013-03-05T20:32:00.004Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Intimacy and desire are often Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli’s key talking points when discussing their designs for Valentino.

“It’s an intimate point of view,” said Chiuri during a preview of the fall line, another beautiful addition to their string of recent stunners, adding that she and her partner “wanted to capture women in a private moment.”

Language like that brings to mind lingerie, which the designers don’t do, although a confident sensuality pulses through the dress silhouette they’ve singled out as their own: long slim sleeves, high neck, restrained A-line skirt, this time shown with girly trompe l’oeil patent T-straps layered with nude velvet for a bootie-pump hybrid. The look is highly specific and personal — you can tell a lot about the woman who wears these clothes. On that note, it made sense that Chiuri and Piccioli chose portrait artists, specifically Dutch masters, as their main inspiration.

Their mood board was covered with examples of captivating faces rendered by Dutch painters, classic and latter day, whose work conveyed a compelling sense of its subject. With that in mind, it was hard to miss the irony as a clash of photographers jousted for their “portraits” of Nicole Richie and Frank Ocean sitting front row at the show. The designers sought to frame the face, focusing on the neckline of their signature dresses, shown at first as precise, A-line minis with prominent white collars done in exquisite leather and lace embroideries. From there, a procession of dresses and gowns drew attention to the neck and shoulders with an impressive range of treatments.

A gorgeous red gown with a dramatic inverted pleat that fell from the bust to the floor had a stiff white shirt collar and shoulders, with a panel of sheer tulle separating the ivory from the crimson. It was grand yet minimal, likewise the China blue gown with a dramatic scoop neck. There was no shortage of variations on these styles, done in luxurious details and fabrics, such as leathers, lace, furs and blue-and-white embroideries inspired by Delft ceramics — in fact, the show would not have suffered from a few less looks, gorgeous as they all were.

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Chanel

2013-03-05T13:01:00.002Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Many aspire; few achieve. World domination, that is. The living legend of Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel continues to grow, ever fascinating and in constant motion. We can’t keep up.

We see it in the obvious global reach of the brand and in smaller, unexpected manifestations: in Loïc Prigent’s “Karl Lagerfeld se dessine,” currently running on the Arte station here, in which the designer tells his life story (or “parts of it,” he said during a preview) by doing on-the-spot illustrations at the filmmaker’s request; in the gaggle of Chanel-clad ladies — young, old, celebrity and merely rich — who on Tuesday morning exited the Meurice en route to the show like a tribe of transfixed pilgrims; in the most frenetic show entrance in Paris.

And on the vast steps of the Grand Palais, there’s ample room for frenzy. The odds are that at some point Lagerfeld will disappoint — right? Not now; not yet. Arriving under the vast glass dome, guests found a huge globe of the world, illuminated with countless points of light, 300 of which bore CC markers indicating the brand’s points of fashion distribution around the world. “You see how many flags there are in Japan and China and all those countries,” Lagerfeld said. “And what would be the luxury industry if we had not all those new fortunes in the rest of the world? That is why you should never compare today with 1929. In 1929 there was America, there was a little money in Argentina and the rest of Europe, and India had none, the Middle East did not exist, communist Russia had none. The problem is not the same now. There they have more money than us, and it’s up to us to help them spend their money, to seduce them.”

In this case, Lagerfeld wooed from afar, much of the audience far removed from the models as they circled the globe. One longed for a closer look, the better to see the intense textural goings-on. Just as the globe indicated market strength, Lagerfeld’s fashion message was a masterful statement of sartorial strength — literally — based on bold, graphic silhouettes in a myriad of different fabrics, most with major surface interest. A few concepts repeated throughout: “the one-piece suit” — actually a coat with a flange at the hips, which, when closed, gave the appearance of a jacket and skirt, and “the double skirt,” which unzipped from the bottom up revealing a second layer beneath.

Coats and jackets were mostly loose and at times bulky, yet appealingly so, particularly A-shapes that had both structure and swing over skirts that followed a similar line. Dropped-torso dresses combined fabrics in horizontal blocks of three; long coats were cut away in front. As for those textures, Lagerfeld favored unapologetically winter-weight fabrics. These were always substantial and sometimes conversational — such as a remarkable black-and-white tweed covered completely in woolly 3-D flowers. Yet there was nothing gentle about this single winter garden, or anything else in Lagerfeld’s lineup. These clothes worked the sturdy side of allure, and only a handful of evening pieces interrupted their face-the-elements bravado.

Lagerfeld even gave his girls an aggressive edge with hardware-enhanced boots and gloves. Global domination is a tough pursuit. Karl wants his brigade armed and ready to flaunt Chanel’s mantle of chic.

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Saint Laurent

2013-03-04T22:45:00.005Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

It might sound strange in a week when the Kim & Kanye circus hit Paris, and when Cher turned up on the front row at Gareth Pugh, but it’s only when the build up to the Saint Laurent presentation mounts that you realise the live streams and image galleries and Tweets you’ve been scrolling are starting to feel like a reality show.

The dramas and disasters, surges of frantic excitement and simmering feuds and epic cliffhangers. And in the midst of it all, the increasingly solitary figure of Hedi Slimane; helming a vision that the world at large seems to regard with either utter bewilderment or all-out adoration. Team Hedi, Team Yves; vote now. Lines close at the end of the show.

A week after his menswear show in January – a show that had been intensely awaited, and frantically pulled apart, and then quickly forgotten – I saw a teenager on the streets in Soho wearing circulation-stopping drainpipe jeans, and a shaggy shearling overcoat, and Cuban heels, and a thickly wound leopard-print scarf. Two streets on, there was another one; scruffy, grown-out hair, and a vast knitted cardigan over those same jeans. And further along again, in Covent Garden, two others. It was the kind of worn-out, moody post-grunge uniform people have worn in London for years, in the bleary bars and clubs of Camden and Shoreditch.

But the aesthetic was shockingly, specifically, exact – still fresh from the runway. When Saint Laurent (with a Y) started Rive Gauche back in the mid-sixties, it was intended both as a way of disseminating fashion’s out-of-reach extremes to the masses, and as a means of catering to a youth market which had just begun to explode. And it was meant to be one-way traffic: preserving the ivory tower, but reaping an entirely separate gold-rush. But instead it became a conduit that allowed streetwear and high fashion to mingle and infect each other with their wildly different energies.

That disappeared over the decades, as the house returned to it’s early hauteur; a determinedly sophisticated sensibility continued by Ford and Pilati (prefacing the route so many Paris fashion houses have taken, gradually retracting back to their couture roots). And maybe that’s the fundamental not-so-mysterious mystery of why Slimane is doing what he is doing at Saint Laurent now; an attempt to reach out and grasp something outside of a world of self-reference, and to create a kind of fashion which reflecting reality – or at the least, a part of it – back at itself.

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Stella McCartney

2013-03-04T13:20:00.004Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

One of the many high points of fashion; and even this deep into the season, there are gleeful moments, is finding something fresh in the familiar.

Gender play, girls-will-be-boys, call it what you will, the incorporation of mannish motifs into women’s clothes is an oft-used, classic conceit. In the collection, Stella McCartney manipulated one of its obvious elements — pinstripes — into something new and utterly engaging. Part of the appeal was that she pretty much extracted the androgyny; her chalky stripes may be the ancestral cloth of the lords of banking, but she delivered them with no small measure of distaff allure.

McCartney opened with tailoring manipulated via creative draping; for example, she twisted and cut an ultrachic jacket on a slant, which resulted in an uneven hem. This went over a long, front-draped skirt in a narrower pinstripe. She then ran with the pattern in various widths, going softer in dresses, both austere and long-sleeved and unexpectedly strapless, and dressed down in a big parka and terrific loose, twisty-turny sweaters. Ever the fashion pragmatist, McCartney seldom loses sight of the importance of function and comfort, a fact she loves to flag on her runway. Here, her contributions to the season’s major coat moment were bold of proportion and in one case, color — a violet bouclé topper.

The comfort factor continued in a luxed-up jogging suit and boxy tartans-meets-denim jacket over a flippy skirt that had a not-too-naughty-school-girl appeal. And she turned the always-inviting sweater dress sexy by splicing it with provocatively revealing lace. Evening offered nods to the smoking as well as wonderfully languid options. These included long dresses made from linear but loose lengths of silk given shape (and held in place) by wide, covered elastic bands, one at the top and the other, midthigh, creating a slight blouson effect.

In other words, they were strapless dresses that didn’t look like every other strapless dress, which is to say, constructed, stiff and boring. And they were beautiful. Brava.

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Givenchy

2013-03-03T19:56:00.003Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Outstanding. Riccardo Tisci staged a show to remember Sunday night, upping his production to theatre quality with a major front row and a headlining act.

Antony Hegarty, the transgendered English singer known for his hauntingly symphonic voice, could not have been more perfectly chosen to perform during the Givenchy show, setting the mood of strange beauty that resonated on every level. It was atmospheric, emotional and full of incredible fashion.

The notes rationed out by front of house p.r. described Tisci’s thesis as “the strength of gypsies meets the romanticism of a Victorian feeling.” Gypsies and Victorians are hardly cut from the same cloth, so it was amazing to see Tisci combine the influences in a lyrical way, representative of both yet literal to neither. But before the bounty of gorgeous paisleys and rose prints worked on long sheer skirts interrupted ruffles and lace, there was Bambi.

The collection opened with a direct reference to Tisci’s own body of a work: a black lace sweatshirt, one of his signature motifs, bearing an illustrated likeness of Disney’s favorite deer spliced with what looked like a classical painting. It was cinched with a red braided leather belt with two hooks for clasps and worn over a sheer, rose-printed silk skirt decorated with what looked like old-fashioned wax letter stamps. The weirdly graceful mix of streetwise aggression and classic gentility continued throughout, on molded biker jackets that came in solid black and saturated florals, paired with slim sheer skirts. Tisci mashed up grungy plaid and rose print on shirts. He trimmed long gypsy skirts in zippers and sliced them up the thigh. Basques that were similar to puffer jackets were affixed around the waists of many looks emphasizing the waist.

This reinforced the romantic, womanly nature of the collection without diluting its edge. A few of the most stunning looks came at the end: boyfriend sweaters, some studded with shiny polka dots, worn over long fluted skirts. Natalia Vodianova was the last exit out. Her legs, taut and toned from a half-marathon run the morning of the show, were visible through the mostly sheer tulle skirt trimmed at the hem in sequined roses — a new and truly daring proposition for evening.

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Chloé

2013-03-03T18:21:00.003Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Let’s assume that the average designer customer is a grown woman and that the average grown woman doesn’t want to dress like a little girl.

That presents a challenge to the designer of a label such as Chloé, a house ruled by the sporty-versus-sweet-innocence dichotomy, wherein white ruffles and apron dresses are part of the DNA. Clare Waight Keller has a good sense of how to navigate the material.

She framed her fall collection with the idea “that transition from when you’re young to being a woman.” Show notes went on to suggest a collegiate attitude, naming “bare legs, dorm rooms, bike sheds, flirting,” but the clothes were adult-driven.

Waight Keller kept a school-days spirit about the lineup, showing pinafore dresses with straps that mimicked backpacks and a plethora of great capes in an inky shade of blue, yet the sharp minimalist cuts tailored the look for a mature, stylish audience. She interspersed utilitarian spareness — a plain blue jumpsuit, for example — with the girlish sportif, as in a cute polka dot tulle T-shirt and kicky skirt. There were elevated basics, such as the ultracrisp, brilliant-white shirts with oversize sleeves. Fabrics including wool felt, precise tweed and shearling were luxurious, and the accent colors of seafoam, chalky blue and red felt classically rich.

Some of the strongest moments came in Waight Keller’s boyish approach to “cocktail,” showing extra-large graphic stripes on a V-neck silk sweatshirt and a slim white skirt. The overtly feminine moments were tightly edited and all the more impactful at the very end, when a plain shift was veiled in metal lattice work and jeweled outer layer, and two tailored tops exploded into dotted tulle skirts.

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Céline

2013-03-03T13:50:00.000Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

To be able to go from a mink coat to a £1 shopping bag in one look is quite an extraordinary thing to do.

And it's what Phoebe Philo, LVMH's star girl, did today - showing a Céline collection that added a new layer of femininity and refinement to last season's confident outing.

It was insanely elegant and very clever, the designer showing her extreme diversity and with it, that whatever she does she does with focus, the taste level always remaining so high - even when it is a woven bag you'd use to go to the laundrette now reinvented as a high-neck and loose jumper, coat and fluted knee-length skirt. But it's her focus that enables such magic to happen - a concise underpinning aesthetic that reins all these things back into being Céline.

Even jewellery - usually the fashion purist's no-go - featured here with little silver bands to define cuffs at wrists and little be-baubled chokers worn two at a time at the neck. There was a continuation of the shoulder wrapping and restraint we saw last time round and there were beautiful grey cardigan capes that knotted at the front as if they were separate garments, but they weren't. Shapes were of course serene and soft, gorgeous coats of peach and pink and gently ballooning proportions and jumpers that were shorter at the front than they were at the back in slate and navy.

Pockets seamlessly plunged and disappeared into dresses and a series of coats towards the end that came dotted with fluffed detail. Again, a little more ornate for Philo. It was considered yet so effortless - again two extremes but which in the hands of Philo and her supreme level of elegance and focus were seamlessly united.

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Jean Paul Gaultier

2013-03-03T00:22:00.002Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Jean Paul Gaultier put on his show tonight in the 17th's Salle Wagram, a venue that is for all intents and purposes his historical home, where he presented some of the most famous and memorable collections of the eighties and nineties.

Location is everything, as they say, and this one would seem to suggest that Gaultier and his newish investors, Spain's Puig Group, are eager to recapture some of the frisson of the designer's glory years—around the time when Madonna and the pointy bras he made for her launched him into fashion superstardom. The crowd that gathered tonight was certainly rooting for Gaultier. A fan near our seat whooped it up from beginning to end.

But reigniting brand JPG will require more than the handful of studded leather bustier tops he opened the show with. Perhaps expectations are too high. Gaultier proposed not only those newfangled cone shirts but a jumble of other ideas, as well: hoods, leather and fur tippets, quilting, and patchwork. He leaned most heavily on a logo print featuring big red block letters and models in silhouette that was reproduced on the scrim behind the runway. It turned up on everything from a slouched-on sack dress to floor-scraping pleated skirts to intarsia fur jackets and coats. Really, a logo print? If he's made it this far without one…

Gaultier was a pot-stirrer back in the day. This collection didn't venture anything more provocative than the use of all that fur. Instead, he cycled through some familiar beats—the trench, the duster coat, leather jackets, modified marinière stripes—without ever really connecting the dots. A stricter edit would've helped matters, and it's more than likely that there's less fussy stuff back in the showroom that will sell in the stores. But that doesn't stop this show from being more than a bit disappointing.

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Comme Des Garçons

2013-03-02T19:18:00.002Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Rei Kawakubo has made a legendary career out of proving that the rules don’t apply to her and her brand, Comme Des Garçons.

This has been particularly true in regard to the traditionally strict discipline of classic English tailoring, where jackets are allotted exactly two sleeves; pants, two legs. We well know such limitations do not exist for Kawakubo, who sees endless possibilities to subvert and send up said narrow genre of clothes-cutting, often beautifully so, as she did with her spectacular fall collection.

“The infinity of tailoring,” Kawakubo commented backstage post-show, with her husband Adrian Joffe offering, “Everything you can do with a jacket and pants.”

For instance, swirl a houndstooth suit into a garden of rosettes, or bubble and twist the sleeves of a jacket into rings akin to a child’s inflatable swimmies. The majority of the lineup was devoted to men’s wear fabrics — pinstripes and gray Prince of Wales — bursting with hyper-feminine treatments. A mini-houndstooth coat was tied up in bows, as if in protest of its Y chromosome, and the legs of low-slung trousers were sewn into rosettes, over which was a half-skirt made of fabric flaps piled on like raw ruffles.

One might describe the constructions and cuts, especially giant pants pinched together in the front and the back as if they were still on the hanger, as clunky; but there was an elegant harmony to the compositions. And then came the finale, when Kawakubo broke with her masculine inclinations and unleashed a frenzy of color in clashing patterns and floral fabrics that were proudly tacky. It’s the first time this season that bad taste looked so good.

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Vivienne Westwood

2013-03-02T16:31:00.003Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Vivienne Westwood opened her fall show with a bunch of eco-warriors in tartan capes that had “Climate Revolution” printed across them, making a point of the designer’s serious environmental activism.

The lineup then drew influences from “the four corners,” as Westwood explained, with Medieval Europe in the Highlands and the Arab region taking the lead. Scottish quilts translated into dresses with slit panels instead of pleats, while a series of beautifully embroidered pieces evoked the sartorial luxuriance of Moroccan kaftans.

A series of cream silky dresses, some wrapped, others belted, all with spiked shoulders injected a softer tone into the collection, which, this season, included more commercially friendly pieces than usual.

Westwood’s outerwear was particularly strong, including a cozy gray poncho-coat hybrid and a play on a trench in a heavy black wool. Although her patchwork of influences left the designer much room for artistic expression, a number of Eighties-esque power suits with squared shoulders looked out of place. Same goes for the shredded sequined disco dresses, which were not as appealing as the rest of the show.

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Viktor & Rolf

2013-03-02T15:55:00.004Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Those fashion provocateurs, Viktor & Rolf were back to old habits this season, offering a new twist on their collective obsession with bows.

Be-ribboned knots have long been a signature for the Dutch duo and this time around the designers integrated bows into sleeves, created mini dresses from front and back facing mega-bows and twisted leather to create a striking bow biker jacket. The femininity of the bow motif was well reflected elsewhere with drop waist flippy minis and Belle De Jour-esque block heels in patent leather.

Mackintosh detailing was peppered across low-waisted all-in-ones and with thin buckled straps above the elbow cinching long bell sleeves. There were also some nifty knits featuring monochrome laurels teamed with quilted, flirty skater skirts and this season's one shoulder trend gained yet another proponent.

But it wasn't all sweetness. Bringing a destructive impulse to their monochrome palette, matching top and jean ensembles were slashed with holes, each of which were covered with fine, gauzy chiffon to reveal the skin below. The holes were then further repaired with chains of barrel beaded cross-hatching stitched across the voids. That destructive bent was reproduced in the closing dresses where peekaboo holes were ofttimes left without their patched-up coverings and edged in hyper girly ruffles to create unexpected erogenous zones across the shoulders or at the hip.

Feminine but racy, simply elegant but full of rebel spirit, Viktor & Rolf gave us a singular yet retail-friendly vision for fall 2013.

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Haider Ackermann

2013-03-02T15:39:00.001Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

He’s got guts. There’s something overtly against the grain about Haider Ackermann's approach to fashion.

These days, most designers, houses, brands want to telegraph if not always a happy picture, the one whose editorial melancholy comes wrapped in understandable prettiness — the better to fuel the bag sales.

Not so Ackermann, whose post-show explanation of intent was as intriguing as the collection he’d just shown. "I'm surrounded by so many strong women, but there's always a fragility inside and I wanted to explore that," Ackermann said, while noting, "The older one gets, the more fragility there is." He might as well have put it, “Hey, there, ladies who can afford expensive clothes, most of you are getting up there!” Not quite “Break a hip yet?” but not exactly fashion’s typical calling card, either.

Rather, a realistic impression of those strong women — not stylist-dressed ingénues or imaginary, rich under-30s who look like Karlie Kloss, but women who inspire Ackermann, season after season. His real-life muses are not of the runway-ruse power-woman variety, all slick-lipped, strong-shouldered perfection. Nor do they expose their fragility typically; fashion-wise at least, the word implies diaphanous, ethereal, floaty,180 degrees away from this collection.

A dark mood that felt almost post-Armageddon settled over the runway as the models emerged from an increasingly dense mist, sheltered from the oncoming threat — outside force or the aforementioned fragility? — beneath layer upon layer of mannish tweeds, woolen jacquards, olive drab, leather and rugged nutria. Coat over coat over suit; jacket over jacket over wool trousers; thick tunic twisted, folded and tacked into place with the artfulness that has become Ackermann’s hallmark. Abundant, yes, and not always easy, particularly the heavy tweed pants. But even with all the layers and draping, Ackermann simplified things, relative to previous seasons, so that the clothes looked as if a knowledgeable designer customer could pull looks together on her own.

Ackermann even succumbed to a single minimal moment: a provocative gray velvet column, his lone acknowledgment of serious evening. Either way, a supreme elegance defined this beautiful collection.

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Yohji Yamamoto

2013-03-01T23:00:00.000Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Yohji Yamamoto started his fall show in plain black, a buttoned-up shirt and skirt traced with white stitching, almost like a raw pattern, which opened the floor for a series of dark, asymmetrically sliced-up looks that would suit an edgy art student.

It took a while for it to sink in that this was not a collection cut from a single Yamamoto axiom, but a variety show, one that progressed rather unpredictably and earned no demerits for it.

Unified by their blunt-cut Rei Kawakubo bobs, the models walked out in bursts of mini themes. After the arty street stuff came a group of black pieces that appeared to be covered in paper fortune teller games. There was surprising color and symmetry in the knits — long, clingy ribbed skirts and tight sweaters in brights, such as orange, blue and purple. Up next was a pair of Annie Hall suits with bell-bottom pants and big platform shoes, followed by more loose, black tailoring.

The best of the bunch were the beautifully draped dresses constructed from intertwining pleated panels that fell into full skirts. Some were black, some done in dusty blue and brown. They channeled Yamamoto’s graceful melancholy with the help of droopy, wide-brimmed hats, but the collection was not cloaked in sadness. Rather this felt charmingly upbeat, even a little jaunty.

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Maison Martin Margiela

2013-03-01T22:23:00.002Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

The Martin-less Maison Margiela started on a new road last year, away from the checklist replaying of the codes of its founder. It began with a new spirit in the Artisanal collection and benefited by being shown on the Couture schedule.

The crystal mask that Kanye has been seen cavorting in this week onstage? That was from the fall 2012 Artisanal offering—and was originally worn by a girl. Then there was last season's ready-to-wear—the one currently in the stores—with its debt to Dada and the Daleks; again it had an energy and a sense of fun that felt like a fresh start. Tonight's ready-to-wear presentation showed another chapter of this new story; yet strangely, it also displayed—maybe not even consciously—some of the very foundations of its founder. Starting with Nick Cave's song from Lawless, "Fire in the Blood/Snake Song," with bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris, a down-home theme was set.

Yet the mood of the collection was not strictly bluegrass; it was more blue-collar. Workwear, uniforms, and a take on masculine tailoring were the orders of the day in the first part of the show—and it was the first and last parts of the offering that were the strongest of all. The tailoring at Margiela was reinvigorated here, and the simple decorative touches—oversize cuffs and hand-painted stripes on the seams of suit trousers—were uncomplicated but effective.

The oversize element increased as the collection went on, but it was essentially molded to and softened for the feminine shape. The other standout part was the ending of "protest dresses." The word "défilé" could be made out running down the middle of one of them—or was that "defile"? Either way, it worked; there was a definite notion of propaganda here. These dresses brought to mind Jean Paul Gaultier's legendary Constructivist collection with its debt to early Soviet agitprop. And on reflection, that earlier part of the show seemed to have a debt to Gaultier, too, in its nod to the short bomber combined with a particular take on menswear.

Lest we forget, Martin Margiela once worked for Mr. Gaultier, and that seemed a romantic seam to mine in terms of connections to the founder. It all added up to something new in terms of the meta-fashion of the house. The ghost of a genius is hard to get away from—especially when the genius in question is not even dead. Paris fashion week is haunted by a few of these talents. A simple CGI replaying of their past actions is just not going to work; instead, there has to be a forging ahead, albeit with an essential respectfulness for the principles of what the house was founded on. At Maison Martin Margiela, that is now happening.

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Christian Dior

2013-03-01T14:44:00.000Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Todays Christian Dior catwalk presentation took place up in the clouds. It was the setting for Raf Simons's dream-like state of mind in a collection that focused on the notion of nostalgia and desire.

Raf explored such notions within the confinement of an incongruous catwalk space, surrounded by gigantic mirrored spheres atop a Magritte style mural of clouds. Simons is no stranger to such surreal influences, referenced most recently in his spring couture collection which featured Dior nymphs appearing from the undergrowth of flower strewn meadows.

Simons's cult following has probably doubled since this 85th Academy Awards, where Dior muse of the moment Jennifer Lawrence celebrated a best actress win wearing a sweeping pale pink ball gown from the latest couture collection - a dress so big that it will most probably be remembered for causing Lawrence to trip up the stairs on her journey to collect her Oscar.

But in Paris today Simons was all about the clothes and the nature of their design. He collaborated with the Andy Warhol Foundation by showcasing a visual scrapbook of the artists mid-century illustrations. In his show notes Raf eluded to Christian Dior's early career as a gallerist in which he represented the great surrealist artists, Dali and Giacometti. And his passion and interest in art lead to an obsession with the Belle Époque. It was this ideal of mid-century modernism that provided the backdrop for todays fall collection. Simons focused on the hallmarks of the house codes, placing great emphasis on the iconic Dior houndstooth motif which featured on wool bustiers. Whilst references to Simons's own spring collection was felt in the graphic asymmetrical silhouettes which provided easy wardrobe transitions for fall.

Simons referred to his designs as "memory dresses", and you could pin-point his nostalgia in the similarities of the classic black crêpe jackets and twill bustiers that walked the runway. Where spring rebirthed the bar jacket, for fall the shapes were more discreet. His draw on graphicism and play with monochromes - a trend which has infiltrated the fall collections thus far - was felt in the sharp knitted dresses, one featuring a cloud-like tiered peplum. Warhol's 'stamped shoe' handbags and signature heel-less platforms provided whimisical references for Simons, who decorated 20s shift shapes and bias cut dresses with Warhol's 1950s 'unidentified female' sketch embellished with rhinestones. And heritage shapes were reimagined with tulip A-line skirts, sash lapels and capes.

Even Raf himself referenced his inner Jil Sander with his go-to colour palette of black and soft pink. His impeccable craftsmanship cut divine lines, progressing from springs chiffon trains by layering dresses with opaque overlays and embroidering attached suede boots. A flash of scarlet and a surprise catwalk appearance from veteran Anouck Lepere provided a timeless reference to the heritage of the Dior woman. Raf's distinct and unique nod to opulence was only achieved through the balance of shape, fabric and colour.

And as Laurie Anderson's fierce violins resounded and Raf scurried past an onlooking sea of applause, here presented a collection that previewed the inner workings of Simons's surrealist dreamscape world.

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Lanvin

2013-02-28T22:18:00.001Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

The mood for the latest Lanvin show felt almost downbeat on arrival at the venue of the École des Beaux-Arts. That's downbeat in Lanvin terms, you understand, which is to say not very sedate at all by most established norms. As male ushers served popcorn, cans of soft drinks, and mini bottles of Champagne to the milling crowd, a casual, loose atmosphere was created.

It was like a high-fashion fairground where you might bump into Catherine Deneuve playing pitch-and-toss. This relaxed mood continued as the popcorn was swept up and the show began. Here day and night, night and day were all mixed together, sometimes in one look. The spirit was carefree yet elegant, controlled yet not giving a damn.

There was an almost twenties feeling in the first dress, an idea of a floral appliquéd tracksuit in the second look, a fifties cocktail dress in the third. Each model reveled in an idiosyncratic appearance of her own, with makeup tailored to meet her individual needs and hair mostly tied back. In anybody else's hands, this could have been something of a mess; in Alber Elbaz's, it felt like freedom and fun. A teenage atmosphere permeated the collection, a schoolgirlish view that avoided the saccharine and cute and could apply to all ages.

This was most noticeable in the shoes: Gone were the ballet flats; in their place, a scaled-down version of a men's oxford. It was the sign that a much tougher girl was emerging for Elbaz this evening. She was no longer wearing prissy slippers, and her new footwear altered the entire silhouette. In one of the many standout looks, featuring a godet skirt and a top encrusted with winged insect appliqués and embroideries, the shoes transformed the meaning of such a mélange to one of a warped bobby-soxer. That was reinforced by the reams of thick gold chains, a constant motif in the collection, along with the letters that dangled from them. In this instance they spelled "cool."

"There is no word I hate more than cool!" Elbaz declared after the show. Unusually for a fashion designer, Elbaz often starts his collections by contemplating spoken and written words; here, they were purposefully on display for all to see. The ones he does prefer are "love," "happy," and "help." And he wants us to pay attention to those words: "I think this is a collection about thinking," he explained. "It is about the world changing, women changing. Who's next? Which designer? Which pope? This is a collection that is not just a global view, but more a local view. How the skills of the French atelier are valid, precious, and relevant. How you can have fashion and business and not kill fashion."

This designer has always been adored personally, and now that personality is coming more to the fore in his output for the house. In Lanvin past, before the tenth anniversary point, there was much to admire. Now, with Elbaz's new, relaxed, yet almost contrary, teenage-spirited approach, there is much to love. And in case you need a reminder, you can read it on a necklace.

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Rick Owens

2013-02-28T17:18:00.003Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

Rick Owens played the weather shaman this afternoon in a collection that immersed itself in the extremities of a violent wind.

His models emerged from a wall billowing smoke, dry ice to be exact, which was the interlinking aesthetic throughout Owens collection. Big hair, even bigger proportions which vibed a mystical aura.

The Rick Owens zeitgeist was a mountain dweller clad in furs and shearling in gargantuan silhouettes. Mohair lined arm patches, whilst wide bell sleeves jutted from floor-length waistcoats with free flowing lapels. Owens introduced a cable twist to the fray, which weaved its way around jackets and laced in between shoulder detailing in deep navy melton wool.

Toggle jackets, trucker coats and signature flute neck collars showcased Owens' penchant for outerwear. And of course it was weather appropriate considering the elements that surrounded the catwalk. The collection closed with a Rick Owens tribe stomping within the dry ice wind machine finale. A translucent being created by the ever spiritual Owens for fall 2013.

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Balmain

2013-02-28T16:08:00.002Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

It seems Olivier Rousteing has a knack for decade play. Where last season focused on the tapered high waists of a 90s silhouette, for fall he took us back even further to an era of punk and shell suits. Balmain had entered the 80s.

Housed in the magnificent Hôtel de Ville, with a ceiling tiered with chandeliers, Rousteing sent down his version of a glitz glamazon zeitgeist. Of course the signature house quilted dresses featured, ribbed with futuristic PVC and metallic diamond motifs and structured with trapeze skirts and cinched wide belts.

Emphasis was on the power shoulder sported by many a working woman. They were elongated with aerodynamic proportion forming fully realised hourglass silhouettes. Parachute trousers pleated in foil metallics whilst heavy embellishment hyped the 80s glam metal vibe of Rousteing's aesthetic.

Leather and drop crotches, metallics and leather with precious jewel hues of sapphire, jade and ruby all paired with slicked hair and chandelier earrings that dangled like the lights above. "Walk this way, talk this way," so says Mick Jagger and Run DMC. Take those words and apply them to the Balmain woman, for she possesses all the attitude in Paris.

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Ann Demeulemeester

2013-02-28T14:38:00.003Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

It was back to black in Paris this afternoon, as the fall collections cast their moody spell on a cloudy Paris.

Though the initial signore for Ann Demeulemeester's fall foray started off somewhat optimistic in crisp, bright whites. Demeulemeester has always had an excellent eye for monochrome and this was evident in her opening look - a gauzy prairie dress topped with a bowler and matching feather plume.

The slight diaphanous element to the clothes is always a constant in any Demeulemeester colleciton, whether it forms trains of chiffon or bell sleeves, her eye for texture and silhouette is paramount. When took apart the main components of collection were evidently straightforward - a pair of Doc Martins, a frock coat and a dandy hat. Models sported straight brows with black paintstick eyes that evoked the striking graphicism of the presentation.

Demeulemeester plumed fur and cinched waists with leather obi belts, romantic whites peeks beneath enveloping black lapels and sleeves, whilst skirts came floor length with haphazard slits. Tread that hallowed ground in the then, now and new of Ann Demeulemeester for fall 2013.

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Carven

2013-02-28T12:51:00.000Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

There were cars at the foot of the catwalk as the models emerged, headlights beaming down the runway, a glossy as if wet floor, giving a slightly sinister air to the proceedings at Carven.

‘The Carven woman, elegant and vulnerable, finds herself in an unusual and violent environment,’ said creative director Guillaume Henry’s show notes. Quite why a designer wants to put his muse of the season in a dangerous situation is anyone’s guess, but it certainly gave him the impetus to design some protective, cosy layers.

These took the form of great coats, some of them almost as wide as they were long, in soft boucle or fluffy teased mohair, and in fondant shades of pale pink, blue and white – colours and fabrics that gave the impression of vulnerability, as did the easy access dressing gown ties that belted the waist.

One particular bubblegum pink coat, double-breasted and with a Carvan-esque collar recalled last winter’s Comme des Garcons exploration with two-dimensions – although this was probably entirely unintentional. All the softness was nicely contrasted with the odd clash of rubbery jacquards, metallic faille and animal screen prints – elk on a camel coat, zebra on a shift dress and repeated on toy-like drawstring bags and hefty rubber tractor-tyre-soled high-heeled hiking booties. One outfit saw a glossy pink fur with short sleeves and a sporty toggle-pull drawstring with a sheeny black faille pencil skirt that had a modern Carven stamp.

Henry ended on a series of black dresses with what looked like a print of beaming car headlights. These were more awkward, with their extended side seams that made the skirts wider – not what a ‘real’ Carven woman might be looking for perhaps. But in general, this was a strong collection with all the Carven codes in place, that will no doubt appeal to the label’s faithfuls.

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Balenciaga

2013-02-28T10:49:00.000Z

Ready to Wear Fall 2013 • PARIS •

'Wanglenciaga' isn't necessarily a term universally acknowledged by the the design team at Balenciaga. Nor should it be, well not until it was announced last season that cool kid Alexander Wang would challenge a position following Nicolas Ghesquière's departure last November.

But this morning it was trending globally. And the fashion conglomerates too were waiting with baited breath to witness just what this urban powerhouse would do, or not do, to one of Paris's most historic fashion houses.

Wang has been delving into the Balenciaga archives for quite some time, and the proposal for this mornings show was of nurture for Cristobal's iconic sculpted vision towards everyday dressing.

He played on classic shapes, only modernising them with minimal contours. The hallmarks of the house were revisited with crisp spherical hems, rounded shoulders and fluctuating silhouettes between diaphanous and narrow separates. His acknowledgment of light and shadow, which in this collection he inverted to represent night and day, was felt in the more paired back evening looks and the dressier prêt-à-porter. Wang manipulated the most stunning of fabrics too, the only print arriving in the form of cracked black leather which walked synonymous to the cracked marble runway. A metaphor perhaps? Telling of a new Priest in the Balenciaga temple.

And texture too came in the manipulation of knitwear which Wang laminated, cutting neat suits and a classic house white dress. His fabrications were as much of a mystery as his own houses collection just weeks prior. And perhaps more awe-inspiring was his ability to make a knitted rollneck look like destroyed white emulsion leather. Where upon first glance it would be assumed to be the latter.

A Wang show, evening at Balenciaga, would be nothing without its covetable accessories. And for fall he created a new Balenciaga boot which came embellished with utilitarian hardware. A miniature lunchbox clutch will certainly fly off the shelves come summer, though as yet its branded identity is unknown.

What appeared today was more Balenciaga than Wang, which is appropriate of course. And those devout Balenciaga followers will surely breathe a sigh of relief. It's fair to say Wang captured the essence of the houses DNA, and both Cristobal and Ghesquière's influences were duly noted in the creation of a tour de force debut collection.

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