Source: CCTV.com
10-10-2006 08:41
By this time, what's in the box of the Paris Fashion Week has all been revealed, piece by piece. And the last few shows, on which the month-long four-stop fashion journey ended, has proved that the City of Light hasn't lost its ability to surprise.
It's typical to expect the unexpected at a John Galliano show. But this one really took the audience by surprise, thanks not to the designer's creative excesses, but to his new-found restraint.
The British designer is famous for staging theatrical catwalk displays featuring stylized versions of the more wearable outfits that customers will later find in stores.
But this time, it's the "wearability" factor of the clothes that stuns - the designer has go out of his way to fill the stores. And in doing that, he has traded his signature exuberance for a minimalism embraced by many other designers.
The creations on show were pallid, literally and figuratively, with only a few shots of purple, green and electric blue to cut through the sea of white suits and nude chiffon gowns.
Bold black and gold brush-strokes and dotted prints vaguely evoked the paintings of American Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.
Huge wire mesh hats by milliner Stephen Jones left some members of the audience nostalgic for the days when the fantasy extended to the clothes.
And Mr Galliano - no one could argue with that - has until recently singularly embodies that fashion fantasy.
French label Chloe, one of the hottest tickets on the Paris Fashion Week circuit, presented a stunning show on Saturday.
A dizzying array of dresses dominated the collection. Richly embroidered 70s-style shifts paid homage to American heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, in a collection that is sure to spawn dozens of high street copies.
After several years of frilly, feminine styles, fashion is swinging toward minimalism with a focus on volume and cut. In fact, Chloe is largely to credit for the austere styles that began flooding department stores this fall.
For the next season, it stuck to clean lines with prim schoolgirl coats and Peter Pan collars.
The fashion house is under close scrutiny at present, after it's designer Phoebe Philo resigned in January to spend more time with her family. Chloe said it would announce a replacement next week.
The last two collections have been conceived by an in-house team under Yvan Mispelaere, who bid farewell to friends backstage before his impending departure for Milan, where he will design for Gucci.
Designer Antonio Miro for Kenzo impressed guests with his use of bright colours against a backdrop of the African desert. The designer used collection to mark what he feels - growing tensions between cultures in the world.
Set in an underground room in the Louvre museum, the show saw models walking down a runway covered in sand evoking the dusty plains of African dessert.
Miro described his ideal woman for this collection as being one who wears "very structured clothes, with clearly defined shapes and vibrant colours".
Dressed in African turbans, models wore wide waist bands and colored bangles. The influence of the Orient is always there in a Kenzo show. And Miro distills it into his general idea with superb tailoring and craftsmanship.
Editor:Lu Yuying
