Two Faces of Paris Fall Shows: Patrick Kelly and Saint Laurent

Two opposite ends of the design spectrum, Yves Saint Laurent and Patrick Kelly, closed the week of fall shows here Wednesday. Each in his own way proved that the Paris fashion picture has not really lost its heart.

At Saint Laurent, it was clear from the faces of those entering the show that not much was expected to happen. In fact, there were quite a few empty seats at the event, which usually draws a standing-room-only crowd.

But from the moment the first models walked down the runway in bright, sharply sculpted jackets and slim leather skirts, one could tell that this would not be a morning of ho-hum clothes.

Yes, Saint Laurent raised his hemlines and nipped his shoulders closer to the bone. But beyond that, he offered dazzling colors and streamlined shapes so precisely carved that they were etched in memory long after the show had passed.

The collection was glamorous and womanly, bypassing most of the teeny-bopper trends that have permeated the design season here. A red silk chemise dress ballooned softly from top of the bosom to the thigh, where a narrow velvet band held it in above a little flounce of fabric.

Simple knit or jersey chemise dresses lightly skimmed the body under suede coats with dangling fringe arranged to simulate capes or shawls. Aqua ostrich-feather sleeves floated on a brilliantly embroidered evening bolero. And bright red, pink or green evening jackets had enough gold embroidery to make drum majorettes shiver with delight.

Satin evening suits with shaped jackets and round-hip skirts were in hot pink or sky blue. And if all this sounds a bit too gaudy, it certainly didn’t look that way. In fact, because of the extraordinarily simple cut of the clothes, they came off almost understated.

Definitely understated were Saint Laurent’s black cocktail dresses with short slim skirts and high or scooped necklines, and his gray or black pantsuits, some with satin lapels for evening. The designer came up with pink or blue quilted silk parkas edged in fringe and coats that reversed from silk to fur.

Saint Laurent took a bow or two after his show, but left the crowd standing and cheering as if they were concert-goers waiting for an encore. The designer probably didn’t know what a hero he’d become.

Saint Laurent was a hard act to follow, but Patrick Kelly was perfect in that slot. Kelly is the black designer from Vicksburg, Miss., whose passionate goal in life is to make young, inexpensive, wonderfully Parisian clothes. He frequently succeeds, always by taking the exact opposite route of Saint Laurent.

Working with more guts than money, Kelly uses everyday objects like buttons, bows, bandannas and colored spools to decorate simple wool-jersey or stretch-fabric dresses in bright colors and simple shapes. He also drapes and shirrs fabric over various points of the body, the designer’s equivalent of an exclamation point.

Kelly’s witty clothes are winding up in some of the world’s most elegant shops, a fact that would give his field-hand forebears no small amount of joy, he states. For fall, Kelly forms long-sleeve, fool-the-eye boleros out of multicolored buttons on little black dresses. He uses gold buttons only as hemline borders on other black styles.

A suit with flaring peplum takes a similarly flared short skirt, giving a two-tier effect below the waist. And his slate-gray, stretch-fabric body dress has an interesting twist at the neckline that simulates a small, knotted scarf.

Kelly’s dynamite print, a pastiche of banana, pink and blue, is used for stretch body suits, bicycle pants, day and evening dresses. It looked good in all versions, even on a seven-months-pregnant model who wore a few of Kelly’s tent dresses and overblouses in the show. She said afterward that she prefers regular clothes to maternity styles and dressed to go home in an oversize Kelly T-shirt and a pair of Kelly’s signature baggy overalls.

The designer, mobbed by fans after the show, invited everyone home to dinner.