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COMPLETE FASHION WEEK REVIEW: Paris Draws the Line Between Fantasy & Reality

by Denise Kuan 13 March 2009 778 views 2 Comments E-mail Denise Kuan

Editors and buyers may have skimped out on the New York, London and Milan shows due to the costs of traveling, but all the front-row regulars were present in the City of Light for Paris Fashion Week.

Watchful eyes were on Valentino’s Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, delivering their sophomore collection, and Balmain’s Christophe Decarnin, who had to somehow top his much-raved-about Spring 2009 collection. Perhaps expectations were too heavy on the three, as Chiuri and Piccioli’s collection drew yawns from the front-row, and Decarnin’s collection was simply an extension (a dull one at that) of his Spring line.

Unlike the New York shows, where the focus was on wearable and true pret-a-porter fashions, Paris designers were split on the direction to further their lines in these dire times. Half the designers chose to place emphasis on clothes women need, others simply wanted us to escape into their surreal dreamscapes. Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquiere and Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz embraced Parisian femininity, crafting easy-to-wear, yet decadent sportswear and dresses. Stella McCartney worked her winning formula of chic, effortless look for working women, this time a little more serious, and less sheer (whew!)

The line was drawn clearly between the darker (and perhaps thought-provoking) collections and brighter (real clothes that people outside of the fashion industry could comprehend), but even so, the “darker” designers stuck to their original claims to fame. Gareth Pugh presented a video collection, seemingly inspired by a fierce, superwoman-type, complete with cape and gloves. Beyonce Sasha Fierce Beyonce might approve. Rick Owens piled on the leather, with his signature asymmetry, cutaways and loads of black. Even Olivier Theyskens’ final collection for Nina Ricci tapped into his goth side–remember, before Theyskens became notorious for designing those $15,000 fantastical Rochas gowns, Madonna wore a gothic-inspired gown from the then-unknown.

But there were other designers who pretty much stuck out their middle fingers to the recession, and not surprisingly, one of them was the original Enfant Terrible–Alexander McQueen. Centering his show around a heap of garbage, McQueen explained that his Fall collection was comprised mostly of previous ideas, “recycled” and re-interpreted. Actually, his headgear might have been recycled too: hubcaps, birdcages, lampshades, saran wrap and empty coke cans adorned the heads of each model, enough to send everyone scrambling for detail shots.

Images via style.com, dazeddigital.com

Despite the individual paths each designer chose for Fall 2009, there were a few trends they all seemed to agree upon, and luckily for us, they were different enough from the past three weeks of runway madness.