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International Herald Tribune
12 Saturday-Sunday, October 8-9, 2005
HUSSEIN CHALAYAN
Zapping at Chanel; Lacroix is calm
Continued from Page 11
‘‘Air! — I wanted lightness,’’ said the designer, re-
ferring to the barely-there spider’s web of veiling, the
dawn sky colors and to lacy hose and sandals with a
fishing net mesh. Ackermann’s skill is in taking
sports pieces and raising them to a different level of
both mood and workmanship: a leather vest covered
with tiny scales of skin; leather pants crisscrossed
with sneaker-style lacing; shorts, soft in satin and
pants in slouchy jodhpur style or in loose zouave
shapes. They all added to a general sense of refine-
ment and exquisite taste rare among modernist de-
signers.
Christian Lacroix launched a new ready-to-wear
line on Friday, determined to prove to his new owners
that he can make his densely beautiful couture col-
lections streetwise. Down came the models from
their haute shoes to pumps with a tiny heel. Out went
fancy hairstyles, in favor of peasant scarves — albeit
decorated with jeweled pins. And the collection was a
calm, rather too polite rendition of Lacroix’s aesthet-
ic, while keeping his joyous sense of color and pat-
tern.
A cherry red trench coat edged with ruffles opened
the show on a top note. But Lacroix’s ‘‘Escapade,’’ as
he entitled the presentation, was more like a walk
down a country lane. There was only a faint perfume
of his native Provence in pretty flowered dresses or
sloppy pants under little jackets. They might have
embroidery at the back as a vestige of his famous
over-the-top embellishment. But the lavish intensity
of Lacroix’s work is part of its charm. It needs to be
reduced like a good sauce, not watered down.
Sometimes a patchwork skirt would sing its gypsy
song or a canteloupe coat with lacy inserts created a
jaunty look. Lively pieces included a floral dress
topped by a shrunken cardigan and a whimsical raf-
fia bag trimmed with polka dots. From his collabora-
tion with Pucci — now over — the designer has
learned to handle prints deftly. But having proved
that he can make commercial clothes, Lacroix can go
now back to the ‘‘Magic Moments’’ that resonated
only on the soundtrack. After all, the customers he
has to wow are for a new shop in Las Vegas.
Hussein Chalayan is an ideas man — sometimes to
a fault. But not this season, when his parade of simple,
elegant, cleverly constructed clothes were often com-
plex in construction but free of the usual complica-
tions. The designer denied backstage that the gilt and
silvered circles on the runway were a code for a col-
lection cut on the curve, where hemlines curled up-
ward, lapels scrolled downward and there was a gen-
www.gucci.com
Fashion
HAIDER ACKERMANN
SONIA RYKIEL
Photographs by Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas
eral sense of fabric undulating across the body. The
show ended with a witty take on the red carpet, as the
stuffed velvet ropes that shield celebrities from the
masses unfurled from little dresses.
‘‘I was thinking of the effect of nature on bourgeois
clothing — and of the baroque,’’ said Chalayan, to ex-
plain the simplicity of the clothes and the arabesques
of cutting. They included a pattern of foliage in a
dress hung on a sturdy bra top.
The cerebral designer, who recently celebrated 10
years in design, has reached that serendipitous mo-
ment when all his concepts are concretized in real
clothes — although the effect was more of putty-soft
molding with the best of Chalayan’s artistry.
Sometimes a designer can create a nest from silks
and satins — and welcome into it those who want
shelter from a chaotic fashion universe. Giambattista
Valli sent out a collection of pretty dresses, with a
touch of ‘‘La Dolce Vita’’ Roman glamour, but an in-
ternational attitude. His clothes come under the ban-
ner of what the Italians call ‘‘Ceremonia,’’ but re-in-
vented for a younger generation. These special
occasion outfits were no momsy mother-of-the-bride
gowns, but light-handed dresses with a play on
volume to create an egg-shaped silhouette. There
might be a swoosh of a bow or a flat one at a raised
empire waist. A couture-style effect was of flowers
trapped between two gauzy layers. Classy socialite
clients sitting front row applauded the Spanish act-
ress Astrid Munoz on the runway, knowing that Valli
is designing for their world.
It was Paris! Paris! at Sonia Rykiel, where the Gal-
lic menu never changes — but the clothes do. With a
focus on dresses, often knitted and loose, worn with
perky flower-trimmed hat and shoes with satin ankle
bows, the show was sparky. It poked fun at the Paris-
ienne, with a pooch-shaped handbag tucked under
the arm or the Eiffel Tower as embellishment. But
there were also cute touches of modernity in cheeky
jeans pockets at the back of a dress. Rykiel’s seductive
Left Bank Paris may long since have been overtaken
by multiculturalism and street style. But in a strong
Paris fashion season it was fun to watch this lively
celebration that ended with models summing up the
Rykiel woman with messages emblazoned on their T-
shirts: ‘‘She likes Chocolate, Sex, the Eiffel Tower.’’
Suzy Menkes is the fashion editor of the Internation-
al Herald Tribune.
iht.com
Coverage of Paris’s fashion week, including slide shows
GIAMBATTISTA VALLI and an e-mail newsletter.
Demeulemeester’s whimsy,
and Gn’s power of the f lower
By Jessica Michault
PARIS
n Ann Demeulemeester’s wom-
I en’s collection, the designer con-
tinued to explore the sculptors-
and-painters theme she had origi-
nally used as inspiration for her first
menswear collection in July.
There were direct references, as
when languid cream-colored silk en-
sembles came out splattered with red
and blue paint or brush strokes of
white on a black T-shirt — and then
again more subtle ones in the way the
long and narrow alabaster and ebony
evening gowns clung to the body, held
up with only the slightest of straps.
The opening wrinkled suits with
baggy pants had a certain whimsy
about them, with shirts peeking out of
slits in the jacket as did the billowing
sleeves that were detached from the
rest of the outfits and slung across the
back like some sort of shoulder hol-
ster.
But this was also a collection that
celebrated the woman’s back. The mod-
ern elegance of liquid dresses paired
with razorback vests worn back to front
and embellished with bits of silver met-
al at the pockets, was as sexy as it was
original. This was a fine collection that
stood tall against a season bursting
with pleats and voluminous skirts.
Andrew Gn embraced the power of
the flower for his spring/summer col-
lection. Flowers showed up trickling
down the backs of tailored jackets to
pool at hemlines, racing up the out-
sides of pant legs or appearing as lace
inserts on off-the-shoulder silk mous-
seline tops.
Gn once again showed off his talent
for embroidery, with almost every out-
fit embellished with glass or wood
beads at the cuffs, waist or collar. A 3D-
pineapple appliqué on the front of a
cream jacket displayed the designer’s
strong technique as well as his sense of
humor. The show that started off with a
sober mixing of black and white en-
sembles moved into a tropical sunburst
of one-shouldered evening gowns in
turquoise, emerald green and a patch-
work of flower prints in hot pink fall-
ing into feather-light tiers of chiffon
ANDREW GN
CACHAR EL
that skimmed the floor. The collec-
tion’s winning combination of cut,
craftsmanship and color will make
women of all ages feel young, fresh and
sophisticatedly sexy.
At Leonard, the designer Véronique
Leroy sent out a collection dominated
by dresses: above the knee for day and
down to the floor for evening. With
nary a pair of pants in sight, the show
could have gone into a sugar-sweet
orchid overload if it hadn’t been for the
deft decision to insert bronze varnish
leather strips into the pink silk jersey
prints. The slices of plastic added to the
terry-cloth beachwear were another
way the designer grounded the fluid,
colorful clothing, giving them a sense
of strength. The program notes an-
nounced that the inspiration for the
line was the Aztecs but with the multi-
tude of silver and black circle-and-
square-shaped plastic paillettes cover-
ing the oversized printed fabric, the
show’s true undercurrent seemed to be
an updating of the space-age ’60s by
way of Paco Rabanne.
Accompanied by the B-52s singing
the foot-taping party song ‘‘Love
Shack,’’ Cacharel sent out a show full of
bright and cheery clothes. The design-
ers Suzanne Clements and Inacio
Ribeiro took the line to Polynesian is-
lands with bold flower prints of hibis-
cus on above the knee full skirts and
three-quarter sleeve jackets. Other
tropically inspired prints like oversize
fronds and birds of paradise also found
their way onto Bermuda shorts, knit
sweaters and a striking trench coat.
The husband-and-wife design team
also partnered up with the Finnish
artist Klaus Haapaniemi to create
quirky fairytale creatures that popped
up on shirts, bags and plastic accessor-
ies worn around the neck or clipped to
pockets of clamdiggers. Charming blue
print dresses worn with chunky san-
dals in identical material were a sweet
take on the whole matching-shoes-and-
bag rule and simple scoop-neck tops
edged in whorled roses was also sweet.
The show concluded with a selection of
iridescent eveningwear in electric
blue, lemon yellow and crisp white
with a nonchalant rope belt loosely en-
circling the waist.
LEONAR D
ANN DEMULEMEESTER