A very eventful Paris Fashion Week
Sarah Maisey reports on one of the most eventful Paris Fashion Weeks in recent history
Paris Fashion Week was punctuated by a series of notable events, starting with the decampment of Gucci from Milan to Paris. As the final part of its Francophile trilogy, the Gucci show took place in a nightclub in Montmartre that had its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.
Declaring the venue to be “a bit dusty, a bit abandoned, but beautiful”, Alessandro Michele sent out looks that began with lustrous beadwork and ostrichfeather fringing before really getting dressy. Lurex, fans, glitter, and lots and lots of fringing covered both men and women, as did some cheeky crystal-encrusted detailing.
Highlighting Michele’s penchant for all things geeky, dresses had oversized shoulders or sat over white lace tights, while the boys strutted in flared trousers with what can only be described as built-in underpants. Woven tabards were worn over chequered “dad” shirts, while white 1970s disco suits were paired with diamante charms hanging from pitch-black sunglasses. And that was just for the boys. Love it or hate it, the Italian fashion house has single-handedly shifted how we all view fashion. Gone is the overt sexuality, replaced instead with shiny nylon and misbuttoned shirts. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but amid all the crazy styling, there were still plenty of covetable pieces, including teal trench coats, intarsia-knitted floral cardigans and ankle-length, leopard-print dresses.
At Hermès, Nadege VanheeCybulski delivered a deliciously understated show that built on all the codes that the maison is famed for. Quiet elegance, wearability and superb craftsmanship are as natural to the brand as breathing is to the rest of us, and were presented here as butter-soft leather jackets, worn loose and open over skirts, or as leather trim and panels running down the length of a ribbed dress. Elsewhere, a simple tunic dress in pistachio was made effortless with the introduction of a drawstring waist, while a fabulous raincoat in Hermès orange was finished with rope detailing (which could have been an equestrian reference, or perhaps yachting, but either way spoke of a privileged lifestyle). Whether presenting the house colour as a messenger bag slung across the body, or making lightweight mesh into an ankle-length coat, the skill of Vanhee-Cybulski lies in taking the unquestionable finish the maison excels at and injecting it with a dose of laid-back cool.
Over at Christian Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri put away her strong political leanings and instead focused on history of a different sort. Having recently resurrected the brand’s iconic Saddle Bag to great fanfare, for spring/summer 2019, she looked to Dior’s link with ballet – and all the floating, ethereal fabrics so closely associated with this dance form.