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Fashion week: ln Paris, designs for women and designs for show
lt’s dangerous to speak in absolutes, particularly in the fickle fashion business. But it would seem stingy, even churlish, not to state the obvious. The best clothes in Paris this season — the absolute best — were created by designer Alber Elbaz at Lanvin.
The proof is not just on the runway, where for spring 2009 he offered an elegant fantasy of feminine, sexy and accessible clothes in a sophisticated palette, but also in the influence his work has had in the industry and on the company’s bottom line. Any woman enthralled by the dazzling costume jewelry now in stores or happy that ballet flats have become chic or who recently purchased a blouse embellished with a grosgrain ribbon has Elbaz to thank.
And despite the sky-high cost of his clothes, they are selling. It is virtually impossible to find any garment in the company’s multistory Paris flagship for less than $1,800 — and that includes a relatively simple silk, pleated sleeveless T-shirt. And yet, the customers come. During a visit last week, a woman in a modest head-covering spoke frantically on her cellphone about purchasing some frock in her sightline. A young woman, clipping in hand, asked a salesman about the blouse she’d seen in a magazine.
The privately held company was founded in 1889 by Jeanne Lanvin, who was first a milliner and later designed children’s clothes. Since 2001, when Elbaz arrived, the house has been on a mission of revival. It settled into the black last year for the first time in a decade, according to Women’s Wear Daily. It is now valued at close to $220 million, and the majority of its revenue is derived from men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, with about 27 per cent from accessories. Exquisite clothes, no matter how expensive, will sell.
What distinguishes Elbaz’s work at Lanvin is that his point of view is not predicated on gimmicks, stuffy intellectualism or extravagant flourishes. The clothes Elbaz showed as the spring 2009 collections came to a close, had all of the signature markings of his work. There were visible zippers, silhouettes that gently followed the body, soft ruffles and sophisticated ease. But Elbaz showed off his confidence and eccentric sense of colour, mixing raspberry and aubergine or blush and mango. His lean trousers sat high on the waist but were balanced by a voluminous blouse that rose high on the collarbone to subtly frame the face. He introduced prints and played with texture.
The models strode confidently on high, bejeweled and crystal-studded heels that were so tantalising one wanted to reprimand Elbaz for such a torturous temptation when everyone should be concerned about excessive spending. Damn you, Elbaz!
The designer might find the inspiration for his colour palette in exotic locales or be mesmerised by the soigne movements of a dancer. But all of that is tempered in a collection whose sole purpose is to make women happy. It is, perhaps, the most daunting task any designer could willingly embrace.
Other designers this season have placed themselves in service to the customer. John Galliano offered a reminder that if one can look beyond his models’ finger-paint makeup and Crayola-coloured wigs, one will see a master of poetic dresses.
While Elbaz injects power into his ruffles and gathers, Galliano creates dresses that speak as emotionally as an abstract painting. He understands the melancholy in the perfect shade of dusty rose or yellow. He can calibrate the excitement stirred up by a dress that falls off the shoulders...just so. His watercolour gowns vibrate with energy without a single geegaw.
What distinguishes Elbaz’s work at Lanvin is that his point of view is not predicated on gimmicks, stuffy intellectualism or extravagant flourishes. The clothes Elbaz showed, as the spring 2009 collections came to a close, had all of the signature markings of his work. There were visible zippers, silhouettes that gently followed the body, soft ruffles and sophisticated ease. But Elbaz showed off his confidence and eccentric sense of colour, mixing raspberry and aubergine or blush and mango. His lean trousers sat high on the waist but were balanced by a voluminous blouse that rose high on the collarbone to subtly frame the face. He introduced prints and played with texture.
Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel spoke to customers using the brand’s basics: hues of black and white, camellias, chains, pearls and tweeds. Against a stage set that duplicated the facade of the company’s Paris flagship, Lagerfeld evoked the history of Chanel, but in a way that situated it perfectly in the present. From his gray and white sparkling suits to his black lace gypsy skirts, the collection distilled the Chanel of the fashion imagination into chic clothes.These designers have created garments that tickle a woman’s imagination and make her think of dressing as a joy — a true feat. It’s much easier to define oneself as a designer by challenging a woman’s definition of beauty or the prevailing dictates of the fashion industry. It’s easier to concern oneself with social statements and the visionary ideal.
The shows ended with Miuccia Prada’s Miu Miu presentation in the rooms of a gilded mansion on Avenue Foch. Prada may be the closest thing that the Paris shows have to a feminist. Her collections always seem to be a political reprimand — even if it is merely a reaction against the constraints of a pencil skirt.
Her spring collection blended the silky elegance of satin with fabric that had all of the humility and simplicity of a potato sack. She graffitied the sad, brown fabric with slashes of red or black. She paired her skirts with tattered satin bodices in shades such as fuchsia. Then she wrapped it all with a pleated apron — in navy crepe, perhaps — and called it a dress.Sometimes it was unflattering and bulky around a model’s body. At other times it was daring and pleasing to the eye and made one rethink the juxtaposition of high style with low, of expensive fabrics with throwaway materials.
She completed the collection with a series of mosaic prints on sheaths that were repeated on wedge heels. It was the right kind of collection for Paris — intriguing, even startling. But it also managed to do right by women. — Dawn/LAT-WP news service
Paris chic in retreat
Comme des Garcons designer Rei Kawakubo sent a model down her runway dressed in a garment that looked as though it had been pieced together from deflated black soccer balls. The model’s hair was hidden under a gray cotton-candy-like wig that rose nearly two feet high and made one wonder what Marie Antoinette had in common with David Beckham.
Just a day before, Maison Martin Margiela celebrated its 20th anniversary with a retrospective that included one-legged pants, backless jackets and other clothes — to use the term loosely — that might as well have been plucked from a surrealist painting. Indeed, to show off a particularly bold golden necklace, a model was wheeled out atop a platform, with her head and neck jutting from an oversize jewellery box.Paris fashion, at its best, is an exploration of shape-shifting and fabric innovation, examining one’s basic assumptions about aesthetics and practicality. Yet as that philosophy has blossomed, the traditional touchstones of French style have all but disappeared. Chanel and Hermes are virtually the only exceptions.
Fashion here, as in New York and Milan, is a global business. But while other cities maintain a sensibility unique to their geography — New York still emphasises sportswear, Milan focuses on tailoring, leather goods and sex appeal — there is little on the runways here that cries out “French” with any conviction.
Only a handful of prominent French designers are at the helms of their own houses here. Fewer still lead the venerable old names such as Lanvin or Christian Dior. But more important than the nationality of the designer is that certain once-inescapable terms — “bon chic bon genre,” “Rive Gauche,” even “coquettish” — no longer apply to the sensibility dominating the runways here.Their absence from French fashion comes up as the presentations of spring 2009 collections reached the halfway mark and the designer Sonia Rykiel celebrated her 40th anniversary. Rykiel is known for her quintessentially French point of view with her line’s saucy St.-Germain-des-Pres style of trim knits, jaunty dresses and droll embellishments. The festivities marking her longevity underscored the reality that no major house speaks that language anymore.
Christian Lacroix, another Frenchman with his own label, creates boisterously exuberant but often fussy ready-to-wear that all too often lacks the urgency required of life now.
Paris fashion can make your head hurt with esoteric meanderings. But it is impossible to ignore. And besides, it would be sad to try. — Dawn/LAT-WP news service
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