|
PARIS—You know you’ve got problems when Marc Jacobs
sticks his tongue out at the front row during the Louis
Vuitton show in Paris, where runways awash with peppy
prints and happy colors couldn’t disguise the fact that
many designers were floundering.
The
luxury industry may be booming, but this season,
uncertainty hangs over some of the world’s most
influential fashion houses. John Galliano, Jean Paul
Gaultier and Alexander McQueen all recently had creative
collaborators or muses die. Other designers are facing
retirement, both voluntary and forced. Add to that an
abysmal dollar to euro exchange rate, and it’s no wonder
the season was rocky.
What was
missing the recent
Paris shows was innovation, the sense that designers have
picked up on what’s happening in culture and turned it
into something provocative. Galliano’s collection for
Dior, usually a creative bellwether, was a rehash of
Marlene Dietrich men’s wear suits and 1930s bias-cut
gowns from seasons past. At Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld chose
this strange moment to pay tribute to
America,
just when sales are taking off everywhere else in the
world. Nobody, not even Nicolas Ghesquiere at Balenciaga,
advanced a wholly new silhouette.
Only
Alber Elbaz found a way out of the malaise, with a show
for Lanvin that was so spectacular, it reminded us that
design can make a difference. It didn’t hurt that it was
a postcard-perfect day—70 degrees, not a cloud in the
sky, flowers blooming in the Tuileries, children sailing
their toy boats on the fountains and a tent in the
middle of it all, strung with white lights. Inside,
bow-tied gents passed out ice cream, and Diana Ross
ballads rang out over the sound system.
Elbaz
hit many of the spring trends—color, fluidity,
sensuality—but above all else, he connected with every
woman in the room, showing her a way to dress for the
fast pace of real life that was stunning in its
simplicity.
Much of
the collection was silk, which had everyone reminiscing
about Go Silk, the 1980s brand of washable, mix ‘n’
match separates that could be poised for a revival. But
Elbaz’s creations were totally modern. First out was a
knee-length, draped and belted cobalt blue silk shirt
dress with a matching flyaway trench coat—practical, but
with a sense of romance. (The outfit also came in
city-smart gray, khaki and black.) Next up, the most
perfect blouse you have ever seen, soft and milky white
with rolled-up sleeves, tucked into a navy silk
miniskirt.
For
evening, pleated silk dresses had trains that swelled
like sails as the models walked, first yellow, then
green, then orange. Tuxedo jackets had the ease of your
favorite shirt, paired with skinny trousers. Short
dresses came in Crayola brights with a single ruffle
around the back, or a soupcon of ostrich feathers in
front. Others were a patchwork of tonal fringe,
feathers, sequins and beads with a tribal feel.
Every
detail was perfectly measured—not a single piece went
too far. Though the models’ hair was swept up, their
ponytails weren’t too perfect. Their lips were glossed
red, but they didn’t come across as glamazons. These
women had places to go in their fabulous clothes, and no
time to waste waiting for hair and makeup. And when
Elbaz sent out a female doppelganger—a model dressed as
he was in a jacket, rolled-up pants and a bow tie—the
message was clear: This designer knows women, and the
future for Lanvin is only going to get brighter.
Elsewhere, the collections were more one-dimensional,
which is to say that there were pretty clothes, but
nothing that inspired the same emotion. Prints were a
huge trend, and nobody did them better than Dries Van
Noten. The Belgian designer created a tropical garden of
delight, mixing floral and bamboo prints, halter tops
and pajama pants. Some fabrics were comprised of
multiple prints, so you had loose chemise dresses,
sarong-style skirts and twist-front blouses with
contrast borders or hems. Van Noten introduced
semiprecious jewelry—ropes of stones around the neck—and
embroidered a jacket all over in silver, making it look
like jewelry.
Ghesquiere applied his Old World meets New World
approach to prints at Balenciaga, fusing 1950s floral
jacquards onto foam to create a stiff, high-tech
material. He made Balenciaga’s sculptural shapes even
more formal, using lasers and ultrasound cutting
techniques to minimize seams on turtle-back tops,
short-sleeve jackets with built-out shoulders, and
hourglass-shaped minidresses with pannier-like hips.
Each piece was stitched together like a corset and
paired with gladiator sandal boots. Technically
impressive? Yes. But does it matter to women’s lives?
Probably not.
At
Chanel, Lagerfeld had stars in his eyes. Looking back to
happier days, he riffed on classic
Americana, opening the show with a denim group (trench coat, jacket
with exaggerated epaulettes, wide-leg trousers), before
moving onto the flag, with red-striped boucle jackets
and star-print dresses and shorts. Perhaps sensing that
the stars and stripes could be a difficult sell, he also
took a spin through Chanel’s nautical heritage, showing
knit dresses with grommets laced through with chains.
Meanwhile, the Jacobs drama continued. The designer has
only become more controversial since he made his
audience wait two hours for his show to start in New
York, and responded to criticism by telling Women’s Wear
Daily that he was thinking of abandoning the US
altogether and showing abroad.
In Paris
at Louis Vuitton, it was more of the same, on the runway
and off. Deconstructed tweed suits, candy colored Lurex
sweaters, transparent gazar trench coats and skirts
layered over other skirts, were delightfully fanciful.
The handbags, done in collaboration with artist Richard
Prince, were a fantastic parade of colorful vinyl and
spray-painted LV logos.
Then
Jacobs took his bow and stuck his tongue out at one of
his harshest critics, long-time International Herald
Tribune fashion editor Suzy Menkes. It was akin to
disrespecting your grandmother, and it made it hard to
appreciate all the beauty that came before. |
