SALON

Tuesday, Oct 2, 2012 11:01 PM UTC

Chanel heads up imaginative, spirited day of shows

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Chanel heads up imaginative, spirited day of showsA model wears a creation by British designer Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen as part of the ready to wear Spring-Summer 2013 collection, in Paris, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)(Credit: Francois Mori)

PARIS (AP) — “Don’t take things too seriously,” said Karl Lagerfeld standing next to a towering wind turbine inside Paris’ Grand Palais, “especially not fashion.”

Chanel’s veteran designer, with trademark humor, thus summed up an important message of this Paris season.

The iconic house’s fun, young collection headlined the penultimate day of Paris spring-summer 2013 show.

The fact the show had nothing whatsoever to do with the several eco-turbines constructed for the event — no doubt at a huge cost to the environment — didn’t seem to matter.

Fashion insiders were busy concentrating on the myriad 81 ensembles— which made this collection possibly the longest Chanel show in history.

A pinch of salt, too, may have been required Sarah Burton’s ode to the McQueen bee, which mixed regal looking crinolines, 1950s silhouttes with bees and insect armory.

As ever, the Alexander McQueen’s ready-to-wear show was Paris Fashion Week’s most original, living up to the spirit of the designer who died in 2010.

Trends on Tuesday included cutouts, as featured in a strong showing from Valentino — with Jennifer Lopez on the front row — and in Paco Rabanne’s signature “69″ dics that exposed inches of bare flesh.

Wednesday — the grand finale of a dense and vibrant week — includes shows from Elie Saab, Miu Miu and powerhouse Louis Vuitton.

CHANEL

Fun was the healthy mantra which infiltrated Tuesday’s Chanel show — a bright and diverse collection brimming with great new ideas.

Silver bauble appliques became buttons, A-line skirts were playfully short, colorful checks contrasted funkily with geometric flashes, and feather fringing billowed exuberantly.

One model in a crossing “C” swimsuit even carried a three-foot (nearly 1 meter) handbag.

A bold new fashion idea was the reworked bolero jacket with curved shoulders, often spruced up with inflated arms.

The wide T-shaped bolero silhouette spread onto sweaters and inspired many of the show’s best looks.

Naturally, many of the brighter ensembles stood out, too.

Bright pink and blue felted oversized sweaters were accessorized to kitsch effect with huge pale or silver pearl necklace clusters.

There was a highly accomplished delivery of color palette also, which lifted one checked red-and-white A-line dress, with the top part sliced off.

It paired beautifully with a contrasting, yet complementary loose blue and red coat.

Another stand out piece was a white bateau-neck ensemble with check navy bands with a clean, slightly sporty vide.

Lagerfeld, who turns 80 next year, certainly hasn’t let age slow him down: It’s the youngest collection Chanel’s seen for a while.

ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

Fashion is body armor.

At least it is for Sarah Burton, who tapped her fantastical imagination for Alexander McQueen to conjure up fashion week’s most original show: Mixing insect-like armory with on-trend stiff bar jackets of the New Look, as well as 19th century crinoline.

If it sounds strange, it was — set to a backdrop of images of bees and honeycomb — with each model wearing a visor reminiscent at once of the 1950s wide hat, a cage and a beekeepers mask.

Have fashions over the ages, she seemed to ask, caged and protected us like in the natural world?

A cinched metal or tortoiseshell waist band — a recurrent Burton feature — which fanned out into a peplum in some of the looks resembled an abdomen of a wasp or queen bee.

The fascinating collection of 31 looks — which had fashion insiders amazed — was as thought-out as it was perfectly executed with metal mesh materials that sparkled mechanically.

The 1950s were visited in full skirts which mixed with structuralist fashion: Hard bodice cages, which showed the inner working of corsetry of the crinoline age, on the outside.

The last collections revisited the queen theme: Billowing structured skirts in beige, soft yellow and vermilion looked like a surrealist take on Marie Antoinette.

VALENTINO

“Suggestion is seduction,” was the theme of Valentino’s accomplished spring-summer 2013 show in Paris, which saw the storied Italian fashion house move subtly more sensual.

Italian design duo Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli kept their strict, high collars and didn’t bare too much flesh but eased their conservative designs, in razor-thin slits and tiny transparent cutouts.

Elsewhere, diaphanous see-through outer garments in black tulle really worked well in bringing home the collection’s message of provocative shyness.

Some of the outfits sported front bibs — wavy silk U-shaped bands — Valentino’s more conservative version of the on-trend ruffle shown by Riccardo Tisci’s show for Givenchy.

Two gorgeous red silk dresses appeared at the end, evoking the spirit of the house DNA.

Founder Valentino Garavani, 80, was seated in the front row and applauded thunderously when the show ended.

PACO RABANNE

Lydia Maurer put a spin on the house archives in her debut collection for Paco Rabanne that included myriad variations on the ’60s Do-It-Yourself discs of the Rhodoid dress.

The starting point of the show was Jean Clemmer and Paco Rabanne’s controversial 1960s photo collaboration called “Canned Candies,” which resurfaced two years ago: Images of naked women in bold armorlike jewelry.

Maurer’s show thus had a vibe of the sexual revolution with provocative dresses that bared much flesh — all held together with Rabanne’s signature “69″ disc.

It evoked the essence of the founder, who first cut his teeth in jewelry design.

One gold fringed number made a bold gladiator-like statement, marching past to the sound of rustling metal.

But some of the tailored ensembles let the collection down.

_____

Thomas Adamson can be followed at http:/ /Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

More Thomas Adamson.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
152 points153 points | comment
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
132 points133 points | 92 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
129 points130 points | 12 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
119 points120 points | 35 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
80 points81 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations