The best thing that happened at Paris Fashion Week
Olesya willow
September and October - hotter time for the fashion industry: one after another are the main world fashion weeks. We have already talked about the most interesting shows and moments of weeks in Milan, New York and London. Now it's time to remember the best thing that happened in Paris.
Chanel Show
Each season, Karl Lagerfeld rebuilds the premises of the building of the Paris Grand Palace, where he traditionally organizes the most ambitious show at Paris Fashion Week. For previous shows, he was "built" with a supermarket and a museum with an exhibition of contemporary art, this time the Grand Palais was turned into Parisian streets and Boulevard Chanel, and the show was turned into a feminist rally. Thus, Lagerfeld in his own way connected the Paris events of 1968 with the current Thaiite. Models led by an armed megaphone, Karu Delevingne, carried placards with slogans on freedom and equality, recalculated in a fashionable manner: “Make fashion, not war,” “Feministe Mais Feminine,” “Women, go ahead!”, “Be your own stylist " and not only. And to show that feminism concerns not only women, a young man came out on the podium with a poster "He For She".
In addition to the current slogans, Chanel showed tweed double-breasted jackets with wide trousers, elongated jackets, psychedelic tai-dai print items, ties, culottes, tweed trench coats, knitted and suede things, transparent dresses and Bermuda shorts, and striped suits. It is strange that Lagerfeld did not release the T-shirts with slogans from the show, they are sure that they would be sold out in a second. We would have taken a T-shirt with the words "Boys Should Get Pregnant Too" for sure.
Show Dries Van Noten
We already foresee how in six months, Russian women's glossy magazines will come out with the headings "War and Peace." At the shows of this season, it’s really hard not to notice two obvious trends: military and hippie escapism. Both can be philosophically reduced to the reaction of designers to disturbing geopolitical events. One of those who managed to speak out in a current manner, without spending brand DNA, was the Belgian Dries van Notein. Unlike most brands, Dries Van Noten still does not belong to any fashionable conglomerate and designer since the 80s and still works in its own aesthetics, selling things in its own monobrends and cornerstones (sales points around 470 worldwide).
Recent seasons Dries shows less conceptual and wearable collections to stay afloat. However, neither aesthetics nor quality suffer from this. The designer continues to work with expensive fabrics such as jacquard and brocade and use Indian hand embroidery. The new Belgian collection dedicated to girls who love festivals from Glastonbury to Burning Man, showing transparent blouses, summer bombers, wide trousers, bra-tops, striped clothes and flowing dresses. In the early 2000s, Dries Van Noten already worked with the floral theme and 70s style, in particular, the way Jimi Hendrix. This can be seen by visiting the exhibition with the archival collections of Dries Van Noten in Paris. In addition to all historical allusions in the final of the show, the models lay on the podium, decorated with soft green moss, in the manner of Ophelia from the picture of the pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millet.
The latest prêt-à-porter show Jean Paul Gaultier
62-year-old Jean-Paul Gauthier announced his decision to close the prêt-à-porter line that had existed since 1976 and focus on working with couture collections. Throughout his career, Gauthier was known for excessive theatricality and the ability to turn the show into a performance - and finally the designer gave a show at the Paris cinema "Le Grand Rex" according to the script of the beauty contest "Miss Jean Paul Gaultier - 2015". Gauthier’s show was a tribute to his work: there were vests, and androgyny, and linen theme — it was Gauthier who in the 80s worked with the concept of underwear as outerwear.
Rossi de Palma arranged a striptease with the words "You better walk, bitch", Coco Rocha came out in a combination dress with a canonical bra. The designer devoted a separate block to fashion editors: the models came out in the images of young Grace Coddington (Vogue US), Emmanuel Alt (Vogue France), Franky Sozzani (Vogue Italia), Karin Roitfeld (Vogue France) and Suzy Menkes (Vogue Worldwide). Suzy Menkes seemed most affected.
Kenzo Show
Creative directors of Kenzo Carol Lim and Umberto Leon each time arrange a non-standard show to match the collections. Last season, the brand collaborated with David Lynch, who created the scenery and soundtrack for the show. This season, Carol and Umberto staged a show in Paris skater park, and before the start they were broadcasting monitors in various languages: "Kenzo would like to remind you that there is no plan B for saving the most valuable thing we have." Obviously, it meant the planet.
The area of style, however, interprets our perspectives in its own way. Most of the brands in the new season demonstrate wearable clothes and reflect on the topic of the 70s, but Kenzo work with technologically advanced materials and show things of exaggerated forms. In the new season, designers use mesh materials and denim, laser cutting, decorate the lapels of jackets with rubber, create over-wide flared trousers and sweatshirts with bulky sleeves, midi-length caviar and maxi to floor-length skirts. Things Carol and Umberto combine with perforated accessories. Cut-outs everywhere: sharp-nosed mules on a small heel, slippers, shopper bags. There is no doubt that the show was devoted to the world of the future - the models came out in cyborg glasses: narrow, as from the Matrix, and wide, covering half of their faces, as if from the Comic Con festival.
Jonathan Anderson Debut for Loewe
A year ago, the Spanish brand Loewe announced that their new creative director was one of the most non-profit British designers - Jonathan Anderson. Anderson's debut show for Loewe waited almost more than anyone else - it was held in the main office of UNESCO, and you can say without modesty that Jonathan’s first women's collection turned out to be strong. The designer, known for his skillful handling of fabric and cuts, creates sculptural things, stitching many pieces of fabric, works with knitting, cuts on tops, pleats fabric, ties kimono belts to pants, works with wet silk, suede (which looks like velvet) and colored skin (yellow, pink, dark blue and aquamarine). In addition, the designer shows concise and incredibly successful jewelry that is easy to combine, as well as leather slippers, booties and bags, folding as fans, as well as wicker baskets.
Show COMME des GARÇONS
By creating COMME des GARÇONS on the eve of the 70s, Rei Kawakubo had been refining her handwriting for a decade before the big breakthrough - the first Paris show in 1981. Despite his revolutionism, after the show, Kawakubo said in an interview with The New York Times that she had to start everything from scratch, work on powerful images that no one had ever seen before. Until now, each collection of Rei Kawakubo is a new step forward, research of forms, colors, "work from scratch". Against the backdrop of modern commercial fashion, Kavakubo manages to preserve the avant-garde spirit and carry the idea of fashion as an art.
The new collection COMME des GARÇONS has become a powerful statement and reflection on the theme of the continuity of times and analogies between the events of 1914 and 2014. Kavakubo examines the red color, showing things decorated with both roses and blood stains. In 1989, Kawakubo already released a collection that gave rise to the phrase "red - new black". This time the abstract forms of things only emphasized the powerful apocalyptic charge of this color, and the hairstyles of the models resembled flames. Video from the show has not yet appeared on the Internet, but the collection can be viewed here, as well as listen to its hourly discussion in the framework of the SHOWstudio discussion.