Time to party! While other designers at Paris Fashion Week presented looks to wear to the office or the stables, Balmain's collection was decidedly perfect for the discotheque. Gold lamé dresses (cut down-to-there and up-to-here) and leggings, black mesh tops, strong-shouldered metallic mini-dresses, black fringe, and floor-length glittering gowns. The soundtrack, however, made a memorable mark on the collection, which The Guardian called "disco-highwaymen-meets-glam-rockers:" Prince's 1984 hit, "Let's Go Crazy."
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At the Cour Carrée du Louvre in Paris on Wednesday, Marc Jacobs debuted a collection of sophisticated tweeds, billowing bell skirts, and floral dresses. And while the clothes were grownup, the tone was girlish and playful at heart. And similar to the curvy models Miuccia Prada sent down her runway in Milan, the models at Vuitton had shape: Pale-faced Victoria's Secret models, such as Laetitia Casta, Adriana Lima, and Bar Refaeli, lent the collection a sensual edge and gave the 1960s-inspired clothes Joan Holloway shape. And maybe it's because they're comfortable in their skivvies, but according to Cathy Horyn, underneath the voluminous skirts at Louis Vuitton, models were wearing monogrammed LV underwear. "Some of the girls turned around and flipped their skirts," she wrote about her visit backstage before the show. "Nothing fazes them."
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The theme at Hermès was "The New Avengers": The house's designer, Jean-Paul Gauliter, meant business. The Fall/Winter collection featured leather, hard edges, and lots and lots of black. Thick black knits and leather three-piece suits (including loose harem pants) paraded down the runway. And aside from a hint of a waist and a flash of leg, there was little femininity in the collection. Models, including British It-Girl Lily Cole (here with Gaultier), looked like Mr. Darling from Peter Pan: bowler hats, thin neckties, umbrellas, and pocket watches.
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Shoulders have been changing shape from New York to Milan. They've been brawny, peaked, even very Dynasty. But on the Miu Miu runway in Paris, Miuccia Prada has issued the perfect prescription for the shoulder problem: She offered a string of coats and dresses topped with round, ruched, and delicately sculpted shoulders. The palette at Miu Miu ranged from black to electric yellow and bright purple. And, in a nod to the 1960s, the collection featured bows, neat silhouettes, and bell-shaped skirts. Starkly modern, however, were the patches of jewels growing across dresses and coats and necklines which plunged to reveal banded bras beneath.
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Alexander McQueen's posthumous collection, which showed Wednesday in Paris, was bittersweet. Editors and friends of the late designer, invited by appointment only, arrived at separate gilded salons. And when they saw the collection, many of them cried. Among them was The Daily Beast's Robert Murphy, who wrote that the elaborate 16-piece collection "had none of the violence and angst he so often channeled… Rather, each intricate, couture-style gown looked a vision of angelic purity, underscored by McQueen's use of elaborate embroidery and religious iconography from Medieval and Renaissance art."
"The Ice Man Cometh," read WWD's headline of Chanel's collection. Another called its creations "Chewbacca suits." Leave to Karl Lagerfeld to pick a theme—and stick with it: He went down on the farm in his Spring/Summer collection last season, but the Fall/ Winter collection went a few temperatures colder—and took place on a icecap. A 265-ton, 28-foot-tall glacier imported from northern Sweden sat in the middle of the runway inside the Grand Palais, around which ran a stream of humorous but highly stylish furs and tweeds. Fur booties, and full-length furs added warmth to a series of smartly tailored mini-skirts and dress shirts. "Ordering 15 truckloads of ice from Sweden may not have done much for Karl Lagerfeld's carbon footprint," wrote Suzy Menkes. "But it says a lot for his sense of artistry, modernity and imagination—not to mention the ability to produce funny, funky, elegant and salable clothes."
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Fur may have been the look of choice at Chanel, but minimalism prevailed at Balenciaga. Nicolas Gesquière, who said the collection was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, presented what WWD called a "retro-future" collection. Gesquière elaborated on his color-blocked Spring collection by introducing more muted colors for fall: Futuristic mini-dresses, sweaters and cropped pants existed in a range of pinks, oranges, blues and greens—yet came punctuated with stripes of orange and brown.
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A little romance, it turns out, goes a long way: Valentino's Fall/Winter show opened to clips from Kenneth Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, and a series of flowing, cream-colored looks blanketed the runway. Architectural ruffles, scalloped hems, and tiered furs abounded—many of which hit well above the knee. The result was young, sexy, and playful. For evening, diaphanous pink and blood-orange evening gowns—also framed with cascading ruffles—rounded out the collection.
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There were more camels on the Chloe runway than, seemingly, the entire Sahara: camel cocoon coats, camel high-waisted pants, camel turtlenecks. The most extreme color in the collection was the heather gray of a suit, and the denim-blue of a cowboy shirt.
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At Yves Saint Laurent, Stefano Pilati debuted a collection that, at first, seemed fit for the convent: Girls' habits strolled the runway in high-necked shirts and rosaries. Shapes were short and round—hoods, cocoon capes, and voluminous skirts. Then came shocks of color: Teal, yellow, fuchsia silks which, if nothing else, will give the nuns something to wear during cocktail hour.
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Stella McCartney's show began with something unexpected: a recording of Tiger Woods' voicemail to his mistress. "Hey, it's Tiger," the tape began. "Can you please take your name off your phone?" And, like the contents of the call, Stella McCartney's collection was a little racy: Simple silhouettes revealed mesh cut-outs, sheer layers floated over dresses, and hemlines were very, very high. But the palette of the collection ranged from creams and grays to blacks and tans. In the end, like what was omitted from that infamous phone call, Stella McCartney may have been more about leaving something up to the imagination.
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The first model on Jean-Paul Gaultier's runway looked like the lovechild of a Turkish whirling dervish and Madonna: Billowing red fabrics and a long braid were grounded with a little Gaultier flair—a cone-bra bustier. This disparate aesthetic wove through the entire collection, where leather-trimmed black jackets were worn with tribal turbans, and rocker-checked jackets sat neatly over kimono-style tops. A highlight of the collection, of course, was the Mexican-inspired headpiece trimmed with fur.
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Audiences at Viktor & Rolf's fall show got a dose of fall fashion—but they also some dramatic theater, as well. The show began with legendary model Kristen McMenamy (who was also a centerpiece of the very different Calvin Klein collection) at center stage, piled in black layers. Slowly, designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren began to slowly undress her, layer by layer—and loaded each piece onto a model who came to carry it down the runway. And each look was more wearable than the one before it: The parade began with jumbo fur-trimmed coats, transitioned to slouchy jackets, and ended with structured dresses. Because each look had been peeled from McMenamy's back, the silhouettes got more slender as the collection went on—and, by the end, she stood there in nothing but a bodysuit.
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Alber Elbaz's Spring collection for Lanvin was bright: swags of luscious colors, short and sexy hemlines, asymmetrical sleeves. But in his latest Fall/Winter collection, the tone was different. Coats and suits were darker and more utilitarian, and a tribal influence strung the collection together: Feathers and beaded chokers adorned many of the clothes. For evening, Elbaz offered a phalanx of metallic dresses, offset by muted miniskirts and tufts of fur.
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John Galliano debuted a long line of sensual equestriennes at Christian Dior: Or, as he told Women's Wear Daily, "Imagine the sound of a whip, out back with a stable boy." The collection mixed manly jodphurs and jackets with flowing blush-colored silks.
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Someone, for the love of God, get the anti-frizz: An outdoorsy girl (who would not care about perfect hair) tromped down Junya Watanabe's runway on Saturday. The out-to-there hair competed with the wide hemlines of the collection's voluminous dresses and overcoats. Furry hoods on coats, military prints, and olive greens dominated.
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At John Galliano, a jumble of cultural references abounded: riding jackets from the English countryside, hair and makeup from Inner Mongolia, Indian warrior headdresses, a Moroccan fez. But no matter the influence, the bigger the better: The collection featured exaggerated silhouettes bursting with voluminous hems, shoulders, and hats.
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