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07.07.11
Valentino - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Valentino AW 11/12 Couture
The spring airyness of Botticellis Primavera seamed to underline Valentino's 2012 couture collection with faded hues of cream, antique pink and mint. This was weighed down by the structured severity of Edwardian wear and the interior décor of that era. Velvet was reminiscent of decadent velvet curtains and so did the fringe rimming. Mythical Grace inspired chiffon drapered tunics had fragile semi translucent flower embroidery and were paired with braided flower crowns evoking images of forest nymphs. Severity was also introduced through the tailored cut, over lapping and oriental collars. Tapestry like floral patterns where created by silky forms vines aboard the mutt of velvet. Images courtesy of Nowfashion.
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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07.07.11
Jean Paul Gaultier - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Jean Paul Gaultier AW 11/12 Couture
Gaultier’s couture 2012 collection too, found fundamental inspiration in the roaring twenties , which blurred the strict past century divisions between feminine and masculine .In sync with this androgynous aspect, present also in Chanel’s couture collection, Gaultier refreshingly presented both men and women looks, which often intertwined. Utilitarian tone was introduced in the mainly dark subdued colour scheme and via fullengh trench coats on both men and women. Elements of aviator coat influenced the trench’s leather fabric choice and fur rimmed collars. A more luxurious tone seeped through as some of the coats geared more towards lux black on black pinstripe robes. The 20’s flashy sequins, flapper fringe, feather plumed headpieces and boas and Schiaparelli styled robey drape gowns, where clashingly combined with the austere air of Edwardian attire, with it’s restrictive collars and duffle cloaks. Crinoline structure got a contemporary twist as it was revealed under translucent fabric whilst the ribbing was suggested by fur line trimming. As women wore trench oversized coats men’s wear got a feminine makeover as the models paced down in see-through lace pants, binding bustier that attached themselves to a long fringed cloaks, ruffle feather embroidered skirts. and head to toe floral print. All these gradually led to one of the final looks which summed and culminated it in a new take on his signature feminine Madonna bra. Synced with the collection, the models shaved head introduced it with a masculine air. Images courtesy of Nowfashion.
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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07.07.11
Givenchy - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Givenchy AW 11/12 Couture
Still embodying the white aesthetic he used as backdrop to his tropical flora in the latest menswear collection, Tisci proclamation he was beguiled by purity for this Paris 2012 couture collection. The blissful elaborately handcrafted stream gowns defiantly reflected his celestial inspiration. Translucent chiffons were draped into floor swiping hems, occasionally as pleated, strewed by tear like delicate pearls and beads, in a take on the nodule patterns on ostrich skin. Ostrich feathers where tightly lined into fur like peplums descending from the waist down while duck plumage created high rising aristocratic collars.
Another dress consisted of tiny tightly lined silk ruffles reminiscent of the cable nit texture of sweaters in his latest womenswear collection, while another bore scale or angel wing like pleats overlapping into circular forms and heaved over the shoulder and onto the sleeves. Delicate cream and rustic gold leaf embroidery seemed to be taken straight out of Eden, to frame dress busts and appliquéd itself onto hems. Screen like fringe dabbled down the waist and from matching clutches.
Even in the realm of couture where painstaking handwork is standard, the adroit craftsmanship of the gowns soar far above, and shone in the truely Haute manner.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion.
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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06.07.11
Chanel- Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Chanel AW 11/12 Couture
In Chanel’s AW 12 couture collection, the Paris runway literally transcended into a wintery wonderland as snow flakes descended from the ceiling tracing the garments with shimmering specs, contrasting against darker fabrics, as if to high-lighten the collections black and white colour scheme, but this didn’t end up carrying with it a fairytale air, but a darker tone. The androgynous theme we’ve been encountering lately, with the increasing number of clothing collections geared to both men and women, was apparent. The classic chic Chanel women, with the bouclé wool skirt suit, had been encountered with seemingly contradicting styles. The accessories for instants, starting with rock and roll reminiscent glovelettes, to the bowler hats, lined with bulging black fringe that in sync with the theme, echoed the pixie cut iconic to Liza Minnelli. The jazzy influence trickled down to wingtips attached to a couple of the edgy knee high boots.
The traditional skirt suit was carried out in both key colours, always mirroring the contrasting tone, through detailing, a lined trim for instance, or alternatively combining the two through tweed patterns.
The timeless Chanel jacket undertook numerous alterations. Feminine peplum detail was applied to several looks, while others transformed into variants on the masculine associated dinner jacket, either trimmed or in a full length coat form. Black collar bows occasionally evoked a tie but when paired with a dress seemed to enhance a dolled effect. Oversized cuts where reiterated throughout the collection, blurring the natural curves of the female body. Enhancing was also evident in details, enlarged coat pockets or expanding trouser hems off kilttered convention.
The 20’s seemed like a befitting decade to emulate the slight androgyny of the collection, as some would claim it marked the beginning of women liberation, this applied to the collection in flapper fringe detailing.
Layered Ruffles where another recurring element, sometimes structured to create bubble volume, at times as organza attached to body enveloping pencil dresses or skirts, veering outward in a cone like manner, or creating exaggerated collars. With these the collection bore an alternative party scene to the jazzy 20’s, evoking pierrot clowns and 16th century Venetian masquerade balls. The solitary lace visors, appliquéd feather motifs, sequins and feather frills all played note to this tone, together with a shift towards periodic inspired silhouettes.
This couture season Chanel aired together with it’s Savoir-faire crafted couture collection, questions regarding fundamental identities, applicable both towards their own style basis and both to gender identity, and by doing so proved once again to be as relevant as ever, or in fact, timeless.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion .
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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05.07.11
Giorgo Armani Prive - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Giorgo Armani Prive AW 11/12 Couture
Giorgio Armani Prive Couture winter 2012 collection once again echoed notes from the far-east but this time round in a more perceptible manner with variations on the traditional kimono set as a foundation. The colour scheme syncing the collection was washed out navy blue, red and white apparent both in the Japanese floral motive printed silks and both as block colour. The traditional prints where modified sometime by enlarging floral elements, adding more romantic pastel tones or blurring it into Monet resembling Impressionistic pattern.
The kimono elements were predominantly incorporated in western tailored pantsuits, long pencil skirts and austere structured dresses. Introductions of uncanny fabrics such as velvet and patent leather added a decadent European twist.
Occasionally only a motif was introduced to the western tailoring, such as a slight asymmetry, by adding a Forisode bat sleeve to off kilter a top, or overlapping jacket lapels replacing the deep v collar which was reiterated through the collection.
In keeping with a subtle approach to theme the hair was not set in geishaesque manner but rather adorned by hats, which offered sculptural interpretation of veered hairdos, focussing on the Hakoshima style. The Obi, the robe belt, was another centre point, exaggerated at times or introducing a vibrant hue such as pink, or red clinching the tailored pieces to extenuate the waist.
The rigidness of Japanese paper screen doors transformed itself into the jagged square collar cut, sleeveless tops and restrictive bustier, and was reminiscent of the chest binding kimono undergarment. The screens where also mirrored in the final looks in large square sequin like plates, which attached together, formed a floor sweeping tube gown or a open front vest like, bustier.
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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05.07.11
Giambattista Valli - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Giambattista Valli AW 11/12 Couture
It seemed the underlining theme of Giambattista Valli was an occasionally colliding encounter between elegance and more sultry audacious influences. The elegance facade seemed like a distinctive nod to a 20’s with cloche hats, black head bands, pearls and application of flapper dress fringe to hems or alternatively fully covering them. Chanel like lux tweed canvas fabric seemed like a subtle influence and was reinterpreted as a black woven canvas with silver threads, the classic cut of their feminine figure conscious tailored jacket and pencil skirts also echoed through the collection. Black and white where the staple colour of the first looks on which bore bits of vigorously clenched up fabric bobs that created adorning texture and patterns on cloaks, skirts and tops. A Grecian influence was another inspiration for the elegance theme. This was detected in diapered cascading gowns and dresses clinched at the waist by metal leaf belts as the modeless bore heavier jewellery under the same style and floor length airy tunics. Flamenco dress red and coral pink brought the more sultry edge in shorter more voluptuous dresses. Leopard print was the final audacious note, incorporated both with the 20’s inspired flapper cut, which transformed to tribal like feather fringes and both in the Grecian-esque gowns.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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05.07.11
Iris Van Herpen - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Iris Van Herpen AW 11/12 Couture
Iris Van Herpen's debuting couture collection introduced a far more conceptualism edge to the Paris runways. Although many pieces had been seen before at both London Fashion Week and in previous seasons, it finally felt as Herpen had found the appropriate showcase for her unique designs.
Constructing sculptural dresses that where anything but ready to wear, with deft craftsmanship of unconventional materials such as strips resembling gold and bronze wires that encaged the models in short cut dresses and created sunray-like high rise collars. A number of inspirations could be identified such as skeleton structure, which was base to the audacious last mini dress. Another top with extended shoulders seemed to be constructed out of fish bone as the model balanced an old fashioned camera. Lined fabric strips created undulate patterns on dresses. Tight Translucent bronze organza raffles created bubble and volume dresses, whilst plastic snake like tubes where incorporated in another look, engulfing the model. All in all the collection had an outlandish feel to it with its slightly macabre inspiration motifs.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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04.07.11
Alexis Mabille - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Alexis Mabille AW 11/12 Couture
If Alexis Mabille’s winter 12 couture collection would have a soundtrack it would be Saint-Saëns Le carnaval des animaux.
Although the first gown was a variation on a classic, aristocratic floor long black cocktail dress, the thigh high side slits revealed more than just flesh, together with the models intriguing slicked up, antenna like, hair strands, it signaled we’re in for a twist on conventional elegance.
The collection consisted mostly of sleek, figure conscious gowns, veering occasionally to more voluminous cuts, above the knee lengths and one ruffle white tulle, tunic like cloak. Like an orchestra each look was a subtle representation of a popular species of fauna, which together created a haute couture visual symphony of animalistic gracefulness.
The colour palette in keeping with the theme was earthy and mostly subdued, The use of velvet suited well as the shifting light reflecting off the opulent fabric evoked the smoothness of skin and together with fur sleeves and fur trimmed edges, enhanced the effect. Eclectic feather hairpieces represented different bird species and were mirrored with slightly more vividly toned garments, such as a white shimmering short dress with bright yellow leggings and a blue gown with oversized structured sail-like ruffles at the bottom. Glistening lace was another way of representing feather patterns. A leopard gown and a silver grey seal print where both obvious attributes but some gowns offered a more suggestive interpretation. A poodle skirt with tulle lining for volume, had green and brown silk strips lined in octagon panels, took a longer while to associate with a tortoise shell. Another slightly more mysterious piece was one of the final gowns, a dark grey mohair dress with light grey ribbed sides that flowed and twisted into ringlets on the side were a witty take on elephant batty ears and impenetrable skin.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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04.07.11
Christian Dior - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Christian Dior AW 11/12 Couture
Christian Dior’s winter 12 couture collection unveiled a vivid assortment of inspirations, textures, volumes and tones, as the catwalk seemed to transform into a nostalgic childhood fantasy birthday party with block colours and prints incorporating candy pastels. Strips reminiscent of party streamers, sometimes layered in an orderly manner, at times creating wave like forms or randomly intertwined , ran through out the entire collection constructing short kimono sleeved tops bubble skirts, and defining shoulder silhouettes.
The subdued pastel like colours where balanced by more defined black and white 60’s mod prints. Broken Geometric Cubistic shapes introduced themselves both in pattern and headwear. Cubes and circles seemed like three-dimensional replicas of Micro’s paintings. 50’s poodle skirts and 20’s inspired drop waist and jazz style cut dresses could be detected. The later cladded by more mature moss green and brown wood panel shaped prints. Pencil skirts and figure fitting jackets clenched at the waistline balanced the voluptuous ground sweeping gowns to follow. As the party continued the pastels where replaced by metallic tones and shiny over sized sequins adorning puff sleeved flowy blouses and paired with translucent, layered peplum skirts. Long chiffon saloon gowns followed. Japanese influence was also present in a samurai amour formed top and metal headwear that seemed like broken panels off the same suit. Garments adorned with cocktail umbrella -like pleated circles or Cotton ball textured tops offered alternative playful texture twists.
Towards the end the celebration became even more vivid and theatrical with voluminous princess like floor sweeping gowns of pleats, ruffls. Headgear became more costumey shifting to portray orbits, stars and Pierrot clown hats. The final gown was a real masterpiece of dozens of layered square banner like patches to concluded the fest like collection with a bang.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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04.07.11
Jantaminiau - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Jantaminiau AW 11/12 Couture
The Dutch designer Jantaminiau, provides a breath of fresh air to the traditionally classic fashion house ruled couture shows. In his latest collection he brings together all the established elements of couture such as ruffled voluminous floor sweeping gowns, laungeriesque chiffons, puffy Victorian styled sleeves, bead embroidery and adornments such as flowers and bows but shreds the conventions by introducing unconventional fabrics, tones and cuts.
The earthy creams and forest browns thread the collection together, and are occasionally broken by surprising, shimmering blocks of bronze and gold. The celestial chiffon encounters a heavier more worldly woven canvas to create women that resemble woodland fairies. There is a slightly more youthful and suggestive tone that gears the collection away from the traditional view enhanced by the sky-high platforms worn by the models, that unite to a full length boot or end at times earlier revealing flesh.
Short sleeved slightly corseted ribbed tops attach themselves to flowy slit, thigh showing skirts, ruffled dresses overtake an extreme make over transforming into short tunics. The gowns are adorned heavily at the bottom with asymmetrical assortments of shredded fabric reflecting the fairy creature’s imaginary encounters with branches.
One stand out piece was a full-length bodysuit of the more rigid slightly shimmery woven material, with a high neckline and royal attire like cone sleeves, the austerity of which, transforms the model into a clay like sculpture.
Another eye catching truly remarkable piece was a gown which flowed from a stern polo neckline top with structured short sleeves finished off by chiffon shred trimming that were risen in the air and resembled the out worldly gowns worn by princess Padme Amidala.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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04.07.11
Anne Valerie Hash - Paris Fashion Week AW 11/12 Couture
Anne Valerie Hash AW 11/12 Couture
Anne Valerie Hash’s past experience as a bridal designer comes subtly across in her couture winter 2011 collection, the colour palette sticks solely to variations on ceremonial whites and groom attire black and greys with flickers of maidenly peach and pink. The unsoiled silhouette evoke the classic take on lux, the body conscious cuts gear away from overly grandiose and offer a truly flattering fit.
Hash’s collection offered short trimmed tailored jackets paired with light airy pantsuits and skirts varying from 7/8 cut to full length.
An off-the-shoulder cut was one reiterated element which suggested flowy ancient Grecian goddess tunics. This with the structural aspect of the tailoring and embellishment free fabric all elevated the clothing to a contemporary clean cut take on renaissance lavishness. This cut was incorporated skillfully both in a slightly draped jumpsuit, and a full length dress in variations of mat and silky black.
The austerity of the tailored aspect was further lightened with sensual low plunging v necklines of short-sleeved vests and jackets.
All in all collision of flow and structure create a sophisticate yet fresh take on timeless covetable wear.
Catwalk images courtesy of Nowfashion
Posted by Tuli Litvak
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26.06.11
Qasimi - Paris Fashion Week SS12 Menswear
Qasimi SS12
There's a moment in The Portrait of A Lady when Henry James' impetuous heroine Isabel Archer declares "I should delight in seeing a revolution . . . ". Recalling a childhood lived in the shadow of the American Civil War, her memories are of being "stirred almost indiscriminately by the valour of either army".
This same tension between the romance of rebellion and the proud defiance of the defending regime feeds - in a very 21st century way - into Khalid Al Qasimi's latest menswear show, "Seizure". Drawing on the mood of revolution which has stormed the Middle East this spring, a battalion of youthful soldiers emerged from a triumphal arch of battered flags in slickly glossy, closely-fitted flight suits, bomber jackets and cargo trousers. Incarnated in deep parachute olives, khakis and blacks, this strict, almost sensual military wear had lurking overtones of parade-ground formality in the accompanying crisply buttoned-up shirts and vivid orange ties.
Yet running in parallel to this was a strand of luxurious decadence, embodied in the Baroque splendour of Versace-esque swirling patterns reinvented in dark, negative-printed silk tailoring, or laser cut into intricate leather pieces.
The show was staged in the cool shade of an open-air Left Bank school courtyard, with curious Parisians ogling proceedings from the street outside. It must have seemed an odd sight - a line of boyish foot-soldiers (some ominously masked), alternating with elegantly dandy aristocrats: a sight with both contemporary resonance and coincidental echoes of France's own age of revolution two centuries ago.
Old and new, tradition and rebellion, fanaticism and fetishism, elegance and danger: a provocative army of contrasts distilled into distilled into Qasimi's coolly modern aesthetic.
Posted by John-Michael O' Sullivan
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26.06.11
Acne - Paris Fashion Week SS12 Menswear
Acne SS12
It was the last show, on the last day of Paris' menswear schedule: and at the end of a weekend of blazing heat, the long climb up the slopes of Saint-Germain for Acne's Summer 2012 presentation didn't automatically look like an appetising proposition. But the hazy evening sunlight turned the Left Bank's cobbled streets into a shimmering haze of gold, at the end of which lay a mirage-like oasis of arcaded courtyard cool, floored in mouthwateringly edible neon-bright carpet stripes of mint green and fuchsia pink.
Creative director Jonny Johansson has won global acclaim for transitioning the Swedish brand from a niche denim label into an intriguingly hard-to-categorise fashion hybrid, straddling minimalism, streetwear and challengingly directional innovation with beguiling ease. So it perhaps shouldn't have been a surprise that he'd chosen to confound expectations by leading the brand back to basics, and returning to the simple, democratic essence of denim clothing.
Of course - this being Acne - simple is never exactly, well, simple . . .
And so Johansson's exploration took in purist Swedish design, in all its' homespun simplicity, alongside a preoccupation with sportswear as what he termed "a new way of dressing up". In intent, it formed an interesting parallel with a very different designer - the Danish Peter Jensen, whose Streep-inspired collection (being shown across the city at the London Showrooms) developed a more idiosyncratic version of the era's no-fuss, austere beauty.
Translated into clothing, Johansson stripped things back to the clarity of flat denim, simple knitwear and sleekly fitted performancewear pieces, all refracted through the brand's distinctively off-kilter proportion plays to create an aesthetic which felt at times almost tailored in its' quiet elegance. Ribbed crew-necks, rounded shirt-collars and flat lapels managed to feel both authentically retro and intriguingly contemporary, presented in almost luminously dust-pale pastel shades of green, coral, lilac and rust.
And the back-to-basics ethos was echoes in a series of subversively decorative prints which played on the notion of camouflage, reinterpreted as filigree-fine lace and tonal silhouette patterns: a reminder, perhaps, that the ideology of self-reliance can lurk dangerously close to isolationism and protectivism.
Acne's venue, the Lycée Henri VI, has educated an eclectic bunch of writers, philosophers, mavericks and visionaries over the centuries, from Guy de Maupassant and Michel Foucault to Jean-Paul Sartre and Andre Gide. If their ghosts were hovering over last night's event, it seems more than likely that they'd recognise in Johansson's uncompromisingly wayward vision the fingerprints of a kindred spirit.
B&W Images by John-Michael O'Sullivan
Catwalk images courtesy of Nowfashion
Posted by John-Michael O'Sullivan
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26.06.11
Arnys - Paris Fashion Week SS12 Menswear
Arnys SS12
As the press navettes criss-crossed Paris from district to district, piling our minds high with an intense rush of shows and presentations, the sense of the French capital's global reach was clear. From Eighties Japanese innovators like Yamamoto, Miyake and Kawakubo, to the new wave of powerfully abstract Korean designers (Wooyoungmi, Songzio, Juun J), to the New World revisionism of Americans Thom Browne and Rick Owens, a kaleidoscope of cultures and aesthetics collided to thrilling effect. But the sense of a native fashion heritage, by comparison, can be a little harder to find - most of the big homegrown names on the schedule (Dior, Givenchy, Lanvin, Vuitton) are comparative newcomers to the menswear scene, and are steered by foreign creative directors: while classic labels like Charvet keep at an aloof remove from the week's fashion theatrics.
All of which made Arnys, the second-last show of the week, something of a surprise. A Saint-Germain institution for almost eight decades, the still family-run business is legendary for its' discreetly luxurious bespoke menswear - favoured by Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Bergé, and Paco Rabanne - and this weekend was making only the second runway appearance in its' long history.
Showing in a shady, tree-lined courtyard near their Rue des Sèvres boutique, the dapper Grimbert brothers sent out a collection of pastel-shaded tailoring - at first sight, a conventional enough set of elements. As the show progressed, however, the label's quietly innovative spirit asserted itself - this, after all, was the firm who designed the iconic, kimono-inspired Forestière jacket for Le Corbusier back in the 1940's. And that mix of timeless heritage materials and fluid movement (with a nod to both the stylized formality of Oriental menswear, and the easy grace of classic Technicolour American musicals) fuelled a range of layered, lightweight hybrid shirt/jackets in colourfully evocative pinstripes, bold colour banding and swirling tonal prints.
In Britain, the traditions and techniques of Savile Row have become the cornerstone of some of our most innovative menswear design, exemplified in Alexander McQueen's savagely-cut, meticulously-detailed silhouettes. In Arnys, the French capital may have found a local focal point around which to re-examine their own sartorial heritage.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion.
Posted by John-Michael O' Sullivan
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26.06.11
Thom Browne - Paris Fashion Week SS12 Menswear
Thom Browne SS12
For SS12 Thom Browne brought his tailored preparatory attire to a speakeasy. Long strands of Charleston pearls hung from the necks of Bright Young Things who also wore headbands. Fringing was layered flapper style upon a top, trousers and a rugby stripe scarf. Garters held up socks bringing a note of cabaret. Double breasted blazers some with sleeves, some without were part mafia gangster, part barbershop quartet. Long drop waist blazers placed an emphasis on lapels. Jackets were belted loosely like robes.
A windbreaker and cape were both given funnel necks. Sportswear aesthetics were seen more explicitly in the shape of a pvc bomber jacket with sharp padded shoulders and a baseball jacket. A cummerbund cinched a waist like a corset. Wide leg 3/4 length trousers were favoured although with slimline tapered pants getting a guest role.
The collection was a myriad of stripes - horizontal, vertical, diagonal. Skinny preppy ties and cravats added formality. Bucket hat lampshades and bowler hats drew you inside the nightclub where there was a definite Victor Victoria vibe. Umbrellas were used as props like staffs.
Images courtesy of Nowfashion.
Posted by Susan Walsh
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