Putting on the ritz
It was glamour and glitz at the recent Paris Couture shows.
FRENCH fashion icon Pierre Cardin made an exceptionally rare appearance at Paris Couture Week, while Elie Saab paid homage to the 1920s.
Cardin, who founded his influential brand in 1950, attended a couture show by Jean Paul Gaultier that paid tribute to his styles.
The Italian-born designer is a contemporary of Christian Dior, who died in 1957. He is, along with Hubert de Givenchy, one of the last living members of the post-War fashion generation.
Age has done little to dampen the designtongue er’s famed acerbic and frankness, who said the homage was a tad dramatic and remained undoubtedly the “personal” work of Gaultier.
“It was creative, but quite theatrical all the same. That’s the will of Gaultier, his pervery sonality,” Cardin said.
“He is an artist. I am proud for him,” he added.
Here are some of the highlights from the recent Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2018 shows:
Gaultier’s take on Cardin
Cardin’s most famous decade, the 1960s, was the era that infused Gaultier’s couture. Bold black and white looks dominated against a backdrop of psychedelic swirls, riffing on the graphic avant-garde designs that made Cardin a household name. A circular black and white striped dress in silk crepe that captured the designer’s signature Space Age vibe led down to theatrical tights: one white, one black. Then the bubble dress, a Cardin invention, was evoked reverentially in a bi-colour gown with double face crepe that was cut into strips on the skirt. Cardin’s designs were often used as creative starting points, and Gaultier made sure the 51 looks never felt like an archival check list.
Still, the show suffered from perhaps too many ideas – such as Asian styles, candy prints – and would have benefited from more focus.
Elie Saab’s roaring twenties
To brash Jazz music worthy of a party hostby ed F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Lebanese designer Elie Saab put on his dancing shoes for an exuberant ode to the Roaring Twenties. Paris, “the city of love, the city of sin”, was the setting, as models in column silhouettes slinked provocatively down a gilded stone staircase and onto the catwalk. It wasn’t just the music that was attention-grabbing.
Giant neck bows, embelcloche lished hats, capes, split legs and plunging neckalongside lines came cinched waists. Mini-skirts on models were richly adorned in sequins and ostrich feathers.
The strongest part of the 54-design collection was Saab’s exploration of the Art Deco styles popular in the postblack World War I era. One gown with structured silver and gold accents got its power from the simplicity of its silhouette. Sometimes, less is more. – AP