Lebanese designer Elie Saab wows Paris
PARIS: Lebanese designer Elie Saab kicked up a storm on Wednesday at the Paris Couture Week.
To brash Jazz music worthy of a party hosted by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Saab put on his dancing shoes for an exuberant ode to the roaring 20s.
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 was not just the music that was attention-grabbing. Giant neck bows, embellished cloche hats, capes, split legs and plunging necklines came alongside cinched waists. Miniskirts 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 post-World War I era. One black gown with structured silver and gold accents got its power from the simplicity of its silhouette. Sometimes, less is more.
Meanwhile, the 95-year-old French fashion icon Pierre Cardin made an exceptionally rare appearance at Paris Couture Week.
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.
On Wednesday, a Russian designer sparked a race row by using a racial slur in a card sent with flowers to a Moscow socialite.
Ulyana Sergeenko sent the roses to her friend Miroslava Duma to celebrate her show in the French capital on Tuesday.
Duma posted a photo of the bouquet to her 1.6 million Instagram followers which included the note quoting the title of a Kanye West and Jay-Z song, “Niggas in Paris.” “To my niggas in Paris,” the card read.
But the post set off outrage on the social network, with supermodel Naomi Campbell calling out Sergeenko by tagging her and writing, “This better not be real.”
Duma later removed the post and Sergeenko also pulled a long apology she posted Wednesday insisting that “my daughter is half Armenian, I have never divided people on white or black.”
Duma later made a formal apology, saying, “The word is utterly offensive and I regret promoting it and am very sorry.”