Waight Keller displays her creative hunger for Givenchy
An enduring cult hit, especially among the fashion set, The Hunger, the 1983 erotic, voyeuristic thriller, certainly pressed the right buttons for Clare Waight Keller in her collection for Givenchy, mining Catherine Deneuve’s Eighties Glamazon wardrobe, and beautifully recontextualising it for 2018.
It’s only five months since her first show for Givenchy. While some critics considered that effort too commercial, there must surely be consensus that she hit her coneheeled stride with this autumn/ winter outing. This was an astutely judged distillation of Parisian style, with Berlin grittiness scattered on the top like salt on snow: massive (fake) furs slung over slim pencil skirts and trousers, sharp shouldered slim coats, plunging silk blouses and tailored black wool dresses that melted into slivers of Chantilly lace – all of it perfectly executed.
There were spectacular coats at Balenciaga, where the Beast from the East was recreated on set with fake snow, the better to display designer Demna Gvasalia’s multilayered approach to keeping warm. While the fashion set already “doublecoat” (wearing one on top of the other), the Balenciaga models seemed to be wearing three coats at a time, the final outer-skin being primary coloured padded cloak-coats Some may see this as an haut-enbas take on homeless dressing, but given the recent weather, it had universal appeal. Despite its Marmite effect on consumers, Balenciaga is the Kering Group’s fastest growing label. Something is going very right Ever since Pierpaolo Piccioli began designing for Valentino in 2008, the house has championed a demure way of dressing. However, yesterday’s collection of voluminous floor length silhouettes, bright, sometimes jarringly so, colours and headscarf covered hair was a rare mis-step.