Paris Designers Tack a Fun-and-Games Course for Summer of ’87
During the summer ’87 menswear collections shown here, the program title too often told the runway story: “Berlin Pin-up Boy,” “Queen of the Night,” “Vera Cruise.”
Fashion fun and games often hid serious and commercial fashion messages, but given the nature of traditional menswear, the alternative was to send battalions of men in gray linen suits down the runway for a big yawn. Or else, to do as Jean Paul Gaultier did. He dressed his male models in waist cinchers, garter belts, thigh-high net stockings and high-heel ankle boots.
The smart designers opted out of runway madness and presented clothes as still life in art-gallery settings with enough live models on hand to show how the clothes moved in real-life situations. Top marks for this approach go to Nino Cerruti, whose fashions were presented in a chic furniture showroom to effect the kind of home or office environment in which the Cerruti man is likely to be found.
To give their shows individuality, many designers looked for the unusual locale: from London’s Paul Smith at the British Embassy in Paris to Claude Montana’s “first” at the Museum of Decorative Art.
Shows aside, some major fashion messages included black denim, already an important street fashion in Paris, London and Milan. It was fashioned for summer with the crisp contrast of a white shirt. Also, signaled were the revival of Teddy Boy drain-pipe pants by both Kenzo and Jean Paul Gaultier and the importance of the white-on-white look for evening, and the star items were the update of the Mexican wedding shirt and the spectacular splash of the return of the wide tie, again the brainchild of Kenzo and Gaultier.
Most collections had nautical or “Out of Africa” inspiration, with the best of the sailor looks at Montana and Kenzo. Montana surprised the audience by doing that classic navy-and-white sailor’s jersey in organdy, teamed with a pair of white trousers; at Kenzo, stripes went in several directions for tops and bottoms, always accessorized with sea captain caps and pipes.
The “Out of Africa” mood had touches of the Australian outback, no doubt inspired by a summer rerun of “The Thorn Birds” on French television. Here, a slouch hat was enough to suggest the mood, as was the color story of burnt grass, scorched earth and eucalyptus green.
Jeff Sayre was another influence from the West. In his case the American West, featuring the cropped, wide-leg pants of roundup cowboys. Elsewhere in the Paris shows, colors were sun-faded and neutral, but at Ferre, they were as brilliant as a prairie sunset.
Perhaps the designer who pushed menswear to a new dimension this season was Niko, who started a few seasons back with a line of men’s underwear that was a male equivalent of Frederick’s of Hollywood and is now a successful retail story.
