Shows Go On : Fashion: Some couture designers slip reminders of the war into their shows. Hemlines ride up and down in their spring collections. Colors range from pyschedelic to moonbeam pale.
The spring couture collections were presented this week in a series of lighthearted showings, despite the shadows of war.
In their program notes, or remarks on stage, several designers apologized for anything that might seem frivolous about their collections. They explained that most lines were completed before the Persian Gulf War.
Other designers let their shows speak for themselves.
At Yves Saint Laurent, for example, rumors were heavy that chairman Pierre Berge, a self-declared “man of the left,” would cancel the designer’s couture show as an anti-war gesture.
In the end, the show went on. But it opened with a model patriotically clad in a navy blue suit, with one red and one white glove--the colors of the French flag. It ended with a bride carrying a rosary instead of a bouquet, as a symbolic prayer for peace.
Aside from these touches of social commentary, the collection is pure Saint Laurent. He showed his trademark tailored suits, softened this time with jackets that ease away from the body, and delicate printed chiffon blouses. Lengths have definitely dipped to a lady-like-top-of-the-knee, but there is one mischievous touch in the collection: patent leather sandals with platform soles and bubble heels.
Although several houses dropped hemlines to mid-calf this season, some of Gianni Versace’s dresses looked like nothing more than a towel hastily wrapped around the body.
And what were those jeans--albeit made in the Versace couture ateliers --doing on a couture runway? They were topped with beaded bras and boleros, but they were still jeans. There were couture leggings at Versace, too. They are his way of infusing a younger spirit into couture. (Several other designers here, including Claude Montana for Lanvin, Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel and Christian Lacroix, have the same idea.)
His mix of prints and psychedelic colors made it a vintage collection if not an innovative one.
There were two ways to be innovative in Paris this week: with longer skirts or modernistic shapes. Emanuel Ungaro was among those who chose to drop hemlines to mid-calf.
Based on sketches he supplied at his show featuring above-the-knee outfits, Ungaro’s decision to drop hemlines was sudden. Some outfits in his spring line do lend themselves to longer lengths, if the skirts are made in fluid fabrics and have a slit in front. Others tend to be a dowdy turnoff that no designer needs in this recessionary climate.
Montana for Lanvin chose the other route to innovation, creating a look that suggests the future of couture design. For this, his third collection for Lanvin, even the women in the front row--model-turned-fashion-writer Inez de la Fressange, actresses Charlotte Rampling and Alexandra Stewart--were of a younger generation than front-row celebrities seen at other shows this week.
Montana’s sculptural skirts seem to orbit around pale legs. Collars rise and fold like the petals of exotic flowers. Everything is made in fine silk Shantung, chiffon or organza, in moonbeam-pale colors. His embroidery work is light-years ahead: silver beading, hammered and flattened into weightless- and supple-looking T-shirts.
At Lacroix, skirt lengths remain short and there is an further easing of the structured silhouette he has favored in the past. There are soft tunic tops, including one in lemon yellow worn with a short white lace skirt. A graphic, black-and-white theme opened the show, but most colors in Lacroix’s new collection are delicate pinks, yellows and ice blues. This time, his pace-setting accessories include straw hats with wrought-iron crowns and mismatched dangle earrings, as well as his favorite gold-and-rhinestone “Calder”-mobile earrings, named for the late artist Alexander Calder.
“Why let Saddam Hussein control what we do?” said French pop star Sylvie Vartan at Christian Dior, sharing the front row with Bernadette Chirac, the wife of Paris mayor Jacques Chirac, as well as Claude Pompidou, former first lady of France, Paloma Picasso with a new chignon hairdo, Baron Heinrich von Thyssen, plus row upon row of the be-furred, be-jeweled, Kelly-bagged women who make up the couture clientele. (The Kelly is named after Grace Kelly and made by Hermes.)
All the shows were crowded, although, as expected, fewer buyers and fashion editors attended.
In his fourth collection for Dior, Milan-based designer Gianfranco Ferre showed his strongest, and most Paris-like, creations so far. Suits, including one in black-waffle pique, have long, carved jackets. Some jackets go over bra tops.
In the true Dior tradition, Ferre uses fabric prints embroidered with pearls and rhinestones for his shaped jackets worn over tulle ball gowns. As always, propeller-size fabric bows cascade over many outfits.
Lagerfeld, Chanel’s ever-mischievous designer, showed “the new kilt,” composed of wide vertical strips of fabric floating freely on the leg as if the model was draped in a car-wash curtain. Other skirts in the collection, while slightly longer, end well above the knee. And they are transparent.
The newest Chanel jacket is made of horizontal bands of grosgrain ribbon stitched on organdy in a new shape that is long and fitted close to the body. Each jacket requires 165 hours work in the Chanel couture atelier.
Minnie Mouse shoes, Louise Brooks wigs, and masses of accessories per outfit are among the latest finishing touches at Chanel.
All official parties originally scheduled for this week--Versace’s dinner at the Ritz, Dior chairman Bernard Arnault’s cocktail party for Gianfranco Ferre--were canceled, but the private party scene was busy.
On Saturday night, Countess Birgette de Ganay gave a dinner for 60 in honor of Versace at her Left Bank apartment, and Hubert de Givenchy entertained at the new “in” restaurant, 15 Avenue Montaigne. On Wednesday, Countess Brando Brandoli held a dinner for Valentino, and Yves Saint Laurent hosted a dinner at his home. The Valentino invitation read: “tenue de ville,” or city clothes; Saint Laurent’s, “tenue habille,” dress up.
While the fashion world focused on Paris this week, London was the center of attention late last week when Marc Bohan, couturier for Christian Dior, Paris, until he was abruptly ousted in 1989, presented his first collection for the London-based house of Norman Hartnell, dressmaker for Queen Elizabeth II. (See accompanying story this page.)
Bohan’s youthful first collection makes it obvious that he is aiming to dress some of the younger Royals as well. Short, hot-pink and pistachio chiffon dresses have long trailing chiffon scarfs. Evening suits are made in menswear pin-stripes and Glen plaids, a look Bohan has always loved for evening. His huge tulle hats are an obvious spoof on the fur hats of the Royal Guard. He also includes floaty, caftan coats in floral-print organdy and white lace that would do just fine for the 90-year-old Queen Mother, minus those strapless sheaths he showed underneath. The French designer has brought a fresh simplicity to British fashion.
