Male, female styles mix with stars to cap Paris menswear
Men's and women's styles merge
Paul Smith's fashion show entitled "WO MAN" set the tone for his gender-fusing designs at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris' chic Left Bank. The British fashion icon's decision to show both men's and women's styles together like Kenzo forms part of a much bigger trend at Paris Fashion Week.
Top houses like Givenchy have increasingly taken to merging men's and women's resort designs on the catwalk - celebrating androgyny and shunning sexual difference. It's as political a statement as fashion can get.
Paul Smith's gender-fused checks
Check, patterns and lashings of androgyny were the ingredients of the day from Smith. The classical tailored gray jacket was worn by a female model, and men sported soft velvet suits in warm vivid shades of violet and blue. Quirkiness peppered proceedings via eccentric contrasts the bread-and-butter sartorial styles and trench coats mixed with quirky pointed snake skin boots, sneakers and loose sweaters with ethnic motifs.
Smith is one menswear designer totally unafraid of color. Cerulean blue, vermillion, olive mixed with blacks and beiges - with gray, monochrome or check, also a key touchstone.
AGNES B
Stripes, checks and graffiti prints defined Agnes B's classical fall-winter show. But the element that made the French designer's display stand out was its virility (barring the inclusion of the odd female model in menswear) in a Fashion Week more and more defined by the androgynous aesthetic. Men of different ages, ethnicities and body shapes sported varying facial hair - in a clear anti-fashion statement in which the designer seemed to scream "being normal is ok."
Luxuriant marl gray overcoats mixed with masculine pattered foulards - while graffiti and pixelated prints on tops gave the collection a hint of aggression. But no Agnes B fashion display would be complete without the necessary fashion contradictions - seen here in the street versus the classical - sweatpants, caps, hoodies contrasted with chic black thick leather coats and suits in warm autumnal hues. — AP