Chloe’s history
Fall saw Gabriela Hearst growing in creative confidence with her beautiful and thoughtful Chloe display that riffed on the Renaissance.
Inspired by Artemisia Gentileschi, the pioneering 17th-century female painter, flattering scooped out shoulder details, long thick statement coats and flared textured pants were among standout garments that felt at once modern and historic — emanating a quiet feminist power.
The baroque musing was handled with subtlety. A giant A-line puffer cape in ruffled Elizabethan segments came in restrained and contemporary black. While harlequin-style gowns came in just three colors — black, white and muted red — toying with color blocking. The piece de resistance? An eye-popping multicolored tapestry dress with sporty straps that was constructed of fabulous paneled images. The tapestry was inspired by Gentileschi’s painting “Esther before Ahasuerus,” the house said, and made by Mumbai’s Chanakya International embroidery studio that provides hand embroidery training for women from low-income communities. Its vibrancy also evoked the Modernist paintings hanging above the venue at the Pompidou Center’s National Museum of Modern Art.
Champagne-sipping stars such as Emma Roberts applauded from the front row. and sobriety, with moments of delicacy as reminders of what is at risk and at stake,” he explained.
Therefore, “clothes have been reduced to the simplest of shapes,” he added.
Fall proved that there’s simple, and then there’s Rick Owens simple. There was indeed an ancient rawness to slashed gowns, draped asymmetrically to reveal bare skin, in the collection of black and disco sheen.
A gargantuan inflated doughnut shape ticked the creative box and almost defied descriptions. It appeared in heavy rotation across the shoulder or on the front like a mouth devouring the chest. The shape also appeared doubled up in complex form in sequined violet and tan.
It was an effective and eclectic fusion of contemporary art and ready-to-wear.
Owens also deserves praise for his eco-efforts. The leather in this collection was prepared through “veg tanning,” meaning that only vegetal and natural tannins were used in the process of tanning and preserving the leather.