Dries Van Notens Spring 2016 (Zacharie Scheurer/AP)
PARIS
— Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of this city that holds fashion so dear, was
dressed in Christian Dior — a simple salt-and-pepper tweed coat. She
stood in the midst of the titans of style: the chief executive of
Christian Dior couture; the head of French fashion’s governing body;
executives from Chanel and Saint Laurent; the willowy former model whose
face once represented Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic.
They’d all assembled at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in a choreographed
media moment to celebrate the start of fashion week here where designers
are unveiling their spring 2016 collections.
With the push of a
single, symbolic red button, the Eiffel Tower began to dance with lights
from its foundation to its pinnacle — a rainbow of colors from red and
blue to deep violet and silver.
“La mode aime Paris” glowed in the dark from its base. Fashion loves Paris.
The
Eiffel Tower lit in colors with the slogan “Fashion Loves Paris” as
part of the launching of the “La Mode Aime Paris” celebration. (Florian
David/AFP/Getty Images)
It was a bit of glittery
showmanship to underscore this city’s place of primacy in the fashion
firmament. Among wealthy customers and aficionados of trends, that
position may not be at risk, but for a broader culture that is enamored
with fast fashion, yoga pants and reality TV stardust, Paris is on the
offensive. It is a city asserting its dominance with a flourish.
For
editors and retailers who make seasonal trips to this city, there is
always an expectation of opulence and craftsmanship, the avant-garde and
the stubbornly classical. But with each transition from old-guard
designer to buzzy star — or the passing of the baton from one
fresh-faced creative director to one equally as youthful — there is a
sense not just of chasing the next new trend but chasing relevance as
well.
How does Paris ensure that it will speak just as powerfully
to the next generation of young women as it did to the those that
preceded it? Count the ways: There are collaborations between high-end
designers and low-end brands such as the one between designer Christophe
Lemaire and the Japanese sportswear label Uniqlo. It is impossible to
be a designer footwear brand without offering some kind of sneaker or
trainer — even if that brand is Hermès. And so designer Pierre Hardy
showed black and red Hermès low-tops for spring.
[Robin Givhan at PFW: Maison Margiela, Yang Li, Dries Van Noten, and more]
There
are competitions for young, dynamic designers, such as the one
sponsored by luxury conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, whose
finalists are immediately bestowed with prestige and attention.
Jacquemus Spring-Summer 2016 ready-to-wear collection. (Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)
Simon
Porte Jacquemus has been both a finalist and a runner-up for the LVMH
Fashion Designers Prize. On Tuesday evening, he staged a fashion fable
that opened with a child in a white shirt pushing a large red ball of
fabric across a vast loft, like a baby Sisyphus. The collection that
followed was in a palette of mostly red, gray and white, and it was
dominated by blazers deconstructed into wrap dresses and shirts.
Sisyphus in a shirtdress at Jacquemus spring 2016. (Photo: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)
In
the middle of the show, the designer appeared — dressed all in white —
and silently led a white horse across the vast expanse of a concrete
stage. The child followed behind, once again overwhelmed while she
struggled with yards of red fabric that unfurled behind her.
French
fashion designer Simon Porte walks with a horse during his 2016
Spring-Summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show in Paris. (Francois
Guillot/AFP/Getty Images
The collection delivered the
audience into a moody dream state where cotton and canvas stood in for
psychic baggage and youthful determination and imagination could,
perhaps, bring freedom.
Jacquemus Spring-Summer 2016 (Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)
Arnaud
Vaillant and Sébastien Meyer, the new designers at a resuscitated
Courrèges — a legacy brand known for its space age, Judy Jetson
sensibility — dispensed with the mythology and the fantasy of fashion.
They turned their show into a live lookbook, a celebration of pure
clothes — not riddles or experiments or philosophical musings.
Courreges Spring-Summer 2016 collection. (Courtesy Courreges)
The
two designers personally introduced their version of an updated mod
collection, noting that the very essence of ready-to-wear should be
clothes that can slip easily into a woman’s daily life, making her feel
more beautiful as she moves through her day-to-day.
Courreges Spring-Summer 2016 collection. (Courtesy Courreges)
They
offered 15 items — a motorcycle jacket, a baseball jacket, a vest, a
miniskirt, high-waisted pants and so on. Each item was shown 15
different ways, in various materials, such as suede or denim, a range of
colors and with different sorts of embellishment. It’s the way that
retailers see a collection when they visit a showroom, where they can
see the breadth of a designer’s point of view and the myriad ways in
which it all fits together.
In a world in which people expect
their desires to be immediately fulfilled, Vaillant and Meyer presented a
collection that gave viewers an instant sense of what was possible —
really possible — in their wardrobe.
Dries Van Notens Spring-Summer 2016 show at Fashion Week in Paris. (Zacharie Scheurer/AP)
Few
designers are able to blend fanciful opulence with accessibility in the
manner of Dries Van Noten. So often, fashion is a game of bait and
switch. What appears on the runway is not really what appears in stores.
The new Courrèges put truth on the runway, and it was refreshing. But
it was not transporting. Van Noten’s truth is mesmerizing.
Van
Noten honors the richness of fabric and mixes prints and embellishments
without fear of creating garish cacophony. Wide trousers in metallic
brocade, jacquard skirts with dramatic demi-peplums, fuchsia satin
platform sandals and next-skin tattooed gloves, all combined for a
subversive elegance.
Dries Van Noten Spring-Summer 2016 collection at Paris Fashion Week. (Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)
For
his finale, the models marched out one last time and posed in a single
line down the center of the massive warehouse. The designer took his
bow. And the models remained while guests — armed with their iPhone
cameras — swarmed them. Van Noten is not a designer who advertises very
much — if at all. What is the need when he has hundreds of people
Instagramming his collection — not some esoteric concept but actual
products — and tweeting it out into the world?
[John Galliano redefines Maison Margiela with Paris Fashion Week comeback]
All
of this reality-based fashion can make dreamers and storytellers such
as John Galliano seem a bit old-fashioned. Perhaps they are. But their
creativity is heartening. His second ready-to-wear collection for Maison
Margiela was a hodgepodge of dresses — a flurry of silver brocade,
mirrored embellishments, scrims of tulle, splashes of paint. Pullovers
looked as if they’d been molded from old foam stuffing and then adorned
with bits of fabric or odd buttons and pins.
Maison Margiela Spring-Summer 2016 (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
The
collection was rooted in the realm of romantic fantasy that has long
defined Galliano’s sensibility, but it was made less precious and
ethereal thanks to the do-it-yourself earthiness that has been the
essence of Margiela.
Maison Margiela Spring-Summer 2016 show. (Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)
The merging of these two disparate points of view is creating a promising vision. More than clothes, yet not pure theory.
Paris continues to bemuse and enthrall. Even without the flashing lights.
Cr : Robin Givhan - Washington post
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