Paris Designers Give Exclusive Glimpse of Spring Collections
When Paris designers--still the undisputed monarchs of the fashion realm--unveil spring ready-to-wear in two weeks, the world ‘s style-setters will be watching.
Every major U.S. store will have delegates at the collections. Cosmetics company executives and hair stylists will be in attendance too, testing the winds of change, figuring out which new French looks will bring fun and fantasy to the lives of customers back home.
Judging from exclusive preview photos for The Times, what they’ll see--and what we’ll get--is a lot of figure-revealing fashions. (If you’re one of those who took an aspirin and waited for skinny-fit clothes to go away, you may have to take another.)
Karl Lagerfeld, the pony-tailed prince of French chic, appears to have sailed back in time, settling somewhere in the 1940s or ‘50s. His ladylike suits for Chanel (shown with short white gloves) have an aura of those more repressed eras.
Demure jackets gently extend the shoulders and define the waistlines; slim skirts outline the hips and stop just short of the knee.
But Lagerfeld’s a playful sort. With his checked Chanel suit, for example, he offers a print blouse dotted with drawings of Chanel styles through the decades. And he tops it all off with a straw hat--a sailor similar to what Maurice Chevalier used to wear.
Lagerfeld’s suits for his own label also reveal a whimsical backward glance, particularly at Joan Crawford. The suits have that aggressive air derived from broadened shoulders that top an otherwise slim and shapely silhouette. And he underlines the look with the kind of mile-high wedgies that will make chiropodists shudder.
Thierry Mugler has also hit on bygone days in Hollwyood. His figure-revealing Capri pants and full-sleeve blouses are pure shades of Sandra Dee. And his models’ pulled-back hair with a fringe of bangs are courtesy of Debbie Reynolds.
The French queen of knitwear, Sonia Rykiel, also celebrates the body-beautiful for spring. What other kind of body could gracefully wear her knit shorts that plaster the thighs, topped with a horizontal-striped, knit tunic that also functions as a fanny wrap?
But there’s hope for Francophiles whose figures are less than ideal. Yves Saint Laurent interprets the lean look in shapes that simply hint of the body beneath. Slim slacks, for example, topped by shirt-jackets that camouflage more than they reveal.
And Claude Montana’s narrow pants and skirts are also topped by jackets that hang loose and very long, to give the illusion of lankiness even where none exists.
