Rich colors dominate Paris runway

PARIS » Soirees merged from night to day as design houses Nina Ricci and Issey Miyake showed off color-rich creations in Friday’s installment of celebrity-filled Paris Fashion Week.

Here are some highlights of the spring-summer 2018 ready-to-wear shows.

NINA RICCI’S MILITARISTIC SPRING

American model and actress Emily Ratajkowski posed ahead of the Nina Ricci show in a checked brown 70s-style suit taken from its fall collection. But for spring, designer Guillaume Henry channeled suits of a different nature: the military.

It was a theme that spoke to the show’s venue: the former French military hospital, the grand Hotel des Invalides, which is now home to France’s Army Museum.

A military jacket in gray with voluminous sleeves opened the show, sporting epaulets, large buttons and exaggerated pockets. Jodhpurs mixed with large visor hats, reminiscent of the French Legion. Fringing that evoked uniform detail came in large silken swathes across a soft anklelength gown with a plunging decollete.

One of the collection’s best looks — an oversize golden yellow plume coat — was styled on a model with a large colonel’s feather pointing up from a head piece.

The collection got more feminine as it progressed — and included a flame red harem-style gown.

But Henry’s detail-rich clothes sometimes could have benefited from a simpler, more spring-infused, approach.

ISSEYMIYAKE’S ICELANDIC POETRY

The greatmysteries of nature and Iceland were touchstones for Issey Miyake in its Paris show.

Loose silhouettes — the display’s principle style — hung from the shoulder featuring hazy images of the Icelandic landscape. The blurred motifs were created by baking printed glue on the fabric, sealing the fashion house’s reputation for cutting-edge clothes-making techniques.

Elsewhere, fabric panels of colorful checks folded haphazardly across the torso used a brown hue taken from a natural mud pigment. To end the show, squares were pieced together, creating a dark, geometric fabric that evoked light reflecting on volcanic Icelandic rocks.

“Great clefts in a harsh landscape, igneous rock covered in moss, gleaming in the rays of the sun, and crystal-clear glaciers stretching as far as the eye can see,” said the program notes.

MICHEL EULER — ASSOCIATED PRESS Models wear creations for Issey Miyake Spring-Summer 2018ready to -wear collection presented in Paris, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017.

MICHEL EULER — ASSOCIATED PRESS A model wears a creation for Issey Miyake Spring-Summer 2018ready-to-wear collection presented in Paris, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017.

MICHEL EULER — ASSOCIATED PRESS Models wear creations for Issey Miyake Spring-Summer 2018ready-to-wear collection presented in Paris, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017.

FRANCOIS MORI — ASSOCIATED PRESS Models wear creations for Nina Ricci Spring/Summer 2018 ready-to-wear fashion collection presented in Paris, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017.

MICHEL EULER — ASSOCIATED PRESS Japanese fashion designer Yoshiyuki Miyamae acknowledges applause after Issey Miyake SpringSummer 2018ready-towear collection presented in Paris, Friday, Sept. 29, 2017.