Fri, March 9 2018 » Fashion Blog
CHANEL FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
A forest has grown beneath the nave of the Grand Palais. Surrounded by blue sky warmed by a gentle sun, trees stripped bare by the season and a floor covered with autumn leaves compose an Indian summer, as Karl Lagerfeld says.
Within this decor, a palette of russets, reds and orange, moss and pine green, bark brown, prints of foliage or rings of grey wood, accompany the signature black and white of the House. Details so dear to CHANEL add their own touch: branch-like braids, jewelled buttons chiselled with leaves, sautoirs of beads and pastel-hued glass paste, necklaces and bracelets interlaced with chains and beads, cabochon and graphic pendent earrings.
The tweed, classic, downy, frayed or woven, alternates with broadcloth, cotton canvas, soft knits, corduroy and velvet. Thigh boots, boots and brogues in oxide gold leather, pink leather fingerless gloves, faux fur cuffs encrusted with feathers, and big colourful scarves all warm this modern and comfortable silhouette. “Chanel, it’s life itself, clothes that have a possibility of life”, adds Karl Lagerfeld.
The long and tubular silhouette is held with square shoulders, clean and high collars. It flares out little by little with godets and peplums in the style of horizontal double ponchos. The iconic jacket is lengthened to mid-thigh or worn short at the waist. The CHANEL suit is twisted with poncho peplums. Long pencil-cut, straight or double-breasted coats accentuate the purity of line. Each time, this is reinforced with a game of topstitching in relief.
Sometimes the sleeves are doubled with a draping from the shoulder, extended with unlined cuffs. The pencil line of skirts and dresses is interrupted with a slit, a godet and a slightly dropped waist. The belted trousers adopt exaggerated volumes. Large overcoats skim the floor, twisting the spirit of great capes by adding sleeves with wide turnback cuffs or sometimes cuffs and hems finished with feathers.
The new bag, named 31, created by Karl Lagerfeld joins the family of CHANEL accessories: the generous shape of this shopper combines smooth leather with quilted leather, printed cotton canvas or tweed. Large bags in shearling gently traverse the winter. This season the 11.12 bag is adorned with rhinestoned bark motifs. CHANEL’s GABRIELLE bag returns as a mini version to match the outfits. The camellia is transformed into a sparkling evening bag while a wooden log becomes a minaudière in precious resin.
The collection calls upon winter in a sophistication pushed to the extreme for evening. At its heart, CHANEL’s little black dress reaches its ultimate, refined and most obvious expression. Fragile dresses in embroidered tulle and organza are worn beneath a quilted down jacket finished with braid. Leather comes encrusted with lace over a little black dress with draped sleeves and is back as trousers worn with a chiffon blouse highlighted by multiple ruffles at the elbows.
Chevroned ribbons encase sheath dresses or a jabot adorns the collar of a dress in pleated tulle. Crêpe blouses are quilted at the shoulder and the wrists. Lace and black velvet are barely powdered with silver, sequins are just as subtle, never flashy. Capes in faux fur enhanced with feathers envelop layers of dresses in lace. Playing with the transparency of the material, their leaf inlayed motifs reveal the very veins of the foliage like a filigree.
This is the grace of nature, strong yet fragile, constantly reborn in all its splendour and purity. A perpetual renouveau reminding us that time has no influence on the icons, the style and the allure of CHANEL.
Fri, March 9 2018 » Fashion Blog
Fri, March 9 2018 » Fashion Blog
Fri, March 9 2018 » Fashion Blog
ROCHAS FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
Bourgeois understatement: precise yet elusive. A daywear look evoking the memory of couture like a faint echo. In a change of direction for its Autumn/Winter 2018/2019 collection, Rochas takes a modern approach to its claim on the discreet charm of the late 1970s Parisian bourgeoisie through its everyday looks. The House reveals a collection that is both sophisticated and down-to-earth: an aesthetic that puts cocktail dresses and gowns on the back burner to focus on elegant, exquisitely feminine daywear.
The everyday elegance of a suit jacket and trousers, a dress shirt or a double breasted coat is softened by an easy cut and enhanced with cashmere double knit. Brocade is combined with microfloral patterns in a whirlwind of glamour where daywear meets evening wear. Chiffon voiles streamline the luminosity of cut thread and decorative embroidery as if to downplay its preciousness. This style enables the cocktail dress to defy the passage of time and adopt an ageless elegance suitable for any occasion.
The collection gives pride of place to colour blocks and also proposes a symphony of sophisticated nuances: prairie green, mint, caramel, powder pink, camel or plum. A sunny yellow all-over look. Accessories make the interaction among these shades even more incisive. Boots bring a glamorous touch to the loafer in coloured reptile print featuring a glittery heel in a contrasting colour. Each, satchel, handbag and mini-clutch is crafted in two contrasting colours.
Solid, almost monochrome embroidery brightens the evening with muted light for an absolutely unique atmosphere. This is the face of the new Rochas signature glamour: an aura that raises everyday clothing to the status of a divinely understated ritual.
Fri, March 9 2018 » Fashion Blog
VALENTINO FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
Romanticism is strength. It places sensibility before rationality, authenticity before stereotypes. Grace is authority. It finds in kindness the tone of expression, and individuality in etherealness.
A deeply personal and therefore authentic point of view, indisputable because perceived. Being romantic is a way of living life. Giving form to the freedom of being, subverting clichés.
Flowers that spread, enlarged as exclamations, palpable as intarsia. Fabrics become present and compact, while silhouettes stratify. Trousers as a constant, jackets as a new addition, day as a horizon.
The femininity of a plumb, of a pleat, of a metal feather or of a drape on a bag. Grace in the movements, seized and stuck in a moment, that quiver. Verticality as vigor.
Colors multiply in the symphony of a monochrome that is disrupted by multiple weavings. Black marks and expands, powerful. Etherealness that leaves a sign. Presence in a moment: strong, romantic.
Thu, March 8 2018 » Fashion Blog
POIRET FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
In her first collection for the Maison Poiret, artistic director Yiqing Yin lays the foundation for a versatile wardrobe that makes room for playfulness, movement and personal expression. In her first collection for the Maison Poiret, artistic director Yiqing Yin lays the foundation for a versatile wardrobe that makes room for playfulness, movement and personal expression. In the spirit of Paul Poiret, who liberated women from the corset in the early 20th century, a complete wardrobe offering sets forth a sensitive philosophy of shape and cut.
In a reprisal of contemporary mix-and-match, these looks move from day into evening, here to there. Oversized silhouettes inherited from Paul Poiret offer the body freedom of movement. Rather than put herself on display, the Poiret woman prefers to play up mood and showcase a subtle sensuality brimming with paradox. Dresses and coats reprise the cocoon shape for which the founder was known.
Pristine shapes invite personal interpretation: belted or loose, or worn back to front, a dress may appear in iridescent green taffeta or jersey, yet produce completely different results. The palette also comes into play, with classic ivory, gray and black as well as canary yellow, shocking pink, scarlet, cerulean and sapphire blue, with touches of bronze green and rust, or almost acid gold on iridescent taffeta.
Oversized knits, shawl collars, new takes on harem pants and a coat in Greenland lambskin make a case for a loungewear spirit mingled with minimalist shapes enveloped in supple draping. A wrap jumpsuit, in jacquard or liquid silk, echoes an “infinite” skirt. House jacquards and prints complete the vision of a new luxury based on the intimate beauty of craftsmanship. A floral motif bends to the simplified lines of minimalist shapes that look as if they had been painted with sweeping brushstrokes.
Silkscreened on an orylag jacket or embroidered on a shirt, these graphics lend rhythm to the collection and reappear in irregular, embroidered details on a pencil skirt or pieces in jersey, right down to fastening details. In the spirit of an exquisite corpse, industrial-inspired jewels and heels evoke Paul Poiret’s clever mixes, like his renowned “robe minute” made of two simple rectangles.
Metallic leathers underscore a universe defined by the union of refinement and functionality. Like supple sculptures, bags reveal geometry of movement with pure shapes and a dynamic twist. As the looks’ final touch, they anchor the collection in an allure composed of contrasts, designed for the 21st century.
« Je souhaite faire de Poiret une maison narratrice de rencontres et d’émotions, le territoire d’un nouveau luxe contemporain placé sous le signe du dialogue avec son époque. Au cœur de mon projet figure une philosophie sensible du vêtement et des coupes, prolongeant le geste de Paul Poiret qui au début du XXe siècle, libérait le corps et l’esprit des femmes. »
Yiqing Yin
Thu, March 8 2018 » Fashion Blog
SACAI FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
A continued exploration of the notion of hybrid – the design language at the heart of Chitose Abe’s vision for sacai since the beginning – creating pragmatic solutions for modern life by cutting and splicing familiar forms to create something new.
Constructionism. Treating the pieces that make up clothing archetypes as though they were building blocks; instinctually constructing with them, interlocking with a playful spontaneity and new simplicity. Assembling and de-assembling, dressing with an ease that comes of wearing clothes with an ‘undone’ attitude, all tied together with a skate-inspired shoelace belt.
School blazer stripes interlock with a down jacket, men’s tailoring sleeves, a quilted liner and elements of a military flight jacket. A tennis sweater, that started life as part of a school uniform, is overlaid with the ruffles and pleats of a chiffon blouse. A denim jacket goes ‘inside out’, its blanket lining re-interpreted and re-mixed as an outer layer of fun fur stripes.
An aran sweater surprises with couture-like volume at the back. Hand-knit sweater pieces are interlinked with chiffon, their patterns re-appropriated and re-contextualised to become a mirror image of one another. A denim jacket meets a men’s tuxedo; dress shirts multiply layer upon layer. Opera gloves and mismatched shoes make for a ’total look’.
A hybrid take on a record bag comes courtesy of a collaboration with Shibuya’s legendary vinyl store, Manhattan Records.
Custom jewellery by Charlotte Chesnais for sacai.
Thu, March 8 2018 » Fashion Blog
JOHN GALLIANO FALL WINTER 2018 WOMEN’S COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
This season, the collection stirs up an encounter that takes place in Midwest America where the Depression has left small towns facing a bleak future. The arrival of a traveling circus lifts the collective morale. Following her performance, one of the burlesque stars seizes on a seductive spark with a man who catches her eye. These traces of an intense, ephemeral connection—now faded in colour yet no less romantic—are what you see today.
As such, looks feature tweed jackets and denim workwear—then and still, a man’s every day essential—in the context of dresses that conjure up a woman who dazzles her audience. Tulle embroidered with silver leaves and fringes nods most directly to a vintage circus reference, while diamond bracelet detailing on delicate, body-skimming slip dresses captures the workmanship of the era. A dress paneled with devoré flowers is distinctive for its muddy brown hue, whilst sugared almond-coloured bias-cut styles and tiered organza frocks make a point to be pretty.
The styling is intentionally haphazard, so that sheer layers are introduced between sequined bras from boxy blazers; a delicate bolero over mohair pairs with cashmere leggings and gold metallic leather shoes over wool socks. If dungarees in dark denim are a fun foil for Victorian detailing, so too are the strands of pearls and mannish oxfords, or checked suiting constructed as a casual ladylike look.
Contemporary surface treatments include feather-esque paillettes and smoky grey plastic shown as a versatile Mackintosh. Hats by Stephen Jones boast tulle netting and ostrich feathers yet are intentionally un-fancy; they reinforce how the collection registers with polish in the face of a certain adversity.
The return of the Galliano Gazette is an exciting embrace of the original House logo : on silk as a spaghetti strap dress or skirt, as cheeky underpinnings, or on cotton canvas as a doctor’s bag.
“Looking back to the past with hindsight, we arrive at new ideas of beauty,” says creative director Bill Gaytten. “But the world would be boring if inspiration only came from classically beautiful things. The notion of romance in adversity captivated me.”
Thu, March 8 2018 » Fashion Blog
ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD FALL WINTER 2018 COLLECTION – PARIS FASHION WEEK
Dear Vivienne,
God how long we have known each other! How wonderful. I want to pay homage to you as my collaborator, my friend and partner, my teacher and of course as my muse.
After examining myself, I felt like looking at you and the different decades of your life in fashion and what it means to me. It started with the 70s – Teddy boy tailoring, the 50s flower wallpaper and carpet from Let It Rock shop in the King’s Road and of course the rubber clothes which I Love so much.
Right in the middle of the 80s is your (Mini) Crini – Girl, which is made in Vivienne red Harris Tweed transferred into today. The 90s are represented through Dior-esque tailoring and exaggerated shapes, the hair print and the Krall shirt, which to this day we still make. Next comes UNISEX.
The white dresses at the end are sustainable, made from old stock and leftovers. There are two garments I copied: One is the mohair punk sweater you made (Knitted) for yourself and which says so much about you. Second is the catsuit from Sara (Stockbridge) which you used to wear when I first met you.
When in doubt: Dress up! One should never see the brain working in what you wear and one dresses in order to be eventually naked. These mantras of yours and so much more became part of my life and work. I still think to this day that you are the best dressed woman in any room.
Love you forever,
Andreas
Thu, March 8 2018 » Fashion Blog
