Paris in Tune With YSL’s Hot Couture
The background music was by Marilyn Monroe, the clothes by Yves Saint Laurent. It was a sly combination that, for the first time during these spring-summer couture collections, had runway photographers ooh-la-la-ing and wolf whistling as models moved down the runway.
Often in the past, Saint Laurent has used grand opera as background music for his couture shows. But since Pierre Berge--chairman of Saint Laurent and also president of the Association des Theatres de l’Opera de Paris--is currently involved in a war of wills with Daniel Barenboim, musical director of the new Bastille Opera, the Monroe music seemed a more neutral choice.
Danielle Mitterrand, first lady of France, whose husband, French President Francois Mitterrand, appointed both Berge and Barenboim to their musical posts, had the seat of honor at the far end of the runway with Catherine Deneuve on one side and the Baroness Marie-Helene de Rothschild on the other.
The first suits came out to the tune of “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” two of them classic pantsuit styles that Saint Laurent has made his signature--but with the pants cropped well above the ankle. It’s a look he introduced in his Rive Gauche ready-to-wear collection for spring.
The third number down the runway couldn’t have been more classic YSL: a navy wool crepe jacket with an above-the-knee navy skirt. When the model started to move, however, the skirt flashed open almost to the waistline, while the blouse under the jacket clung precariously to the shoulders before plummeting in a wide-open V to the waist.
Sexy Trademark
Jackets were tailored to look as if there was no blouse underneath, but there was always one of those bosom-baring beauties, often in a flash of red or pink to contrast with the more classic white, navy or black of the suits themselves.
Skirt lengths rested firmly above-the-knee for day, with the slit ones more revealing than the shortest of minis. Accessories were kept to a minimum: big, flat earrings close to the head; perky small straw hats perched on the forehead; white kid gloves and linen shoes.
Oversized buttons in mother-of-pearl, silver, rhinestone or gold were used almost as jewels to decorate jackets and skirts and to outline the seaming on another important day look, the easy chemise dresses.
The chemises had the same new shoulder as Saint Laurent’s jackets: less sharply defined than in the past but still wide, with fabric folded over in a flange for a looser, easier fit.
Another Saint Laurent signature is the tuxedo, and as always, he included a group of them in this collection. This time around, tuxedo jackets were usually shown with short or long dresses in black or navy silk chiffon.
Paris is chiffon-mad for spring, but Saint Laurent’s way with it was the freshest and most directional: almost sporty-looking tank tops and skirts in sheerest chiffon, under gabardine smoking jackets. The chiffon skirts, like their daytime equivalents, were slashed up to sash-wrapped waistlines. For evening, jewelry was more in evidence: mother-of-pearl snails curled against the ear lobe; armloads of pearl and coral bracelets or oversized jeweled crosses balanced on those almost bare bosoms.
Throughout the collection, Saint Laurent spliced black, navy and white groups with bursts of color: A scoop-neck cardigan jacket was in tomato crepe above ruby satin pants, the blouse in aquamarine chiffon and the straw pancake hat in tangerine.
Rich Decoration
Another Saint Laurent specialty is extravagant embroidery--some of the pieces in these groups sell for over $60,000. And extravagant is the only word for the gazar capes in red, violet, tangerine and turquoise, which were re-embroidered with bougainvillea vines. The capes were over the simplest chiffon beauties of the collection.
Then, almost as the sherbet course in a too-rich banquet--between these capes and a group of beaded matador jackets--he slipped in two floor-length dresses, long-sleeved and completely covered up: one in tea rose pink, the other in black crepe. These brought down the house.
Meanwhile, at the Hotel Maurice just across the street from the Intercontinental Hotel where Saint Laurent showed, Milan’s Gianni Versace was putting the finishing touches on the small “Atelier” collection he will present at the Musee d’Orsay tonight.
“Atelier as in ‘workrooms,’ ” Versace said of the clothes that are hand-made in workrooms above his palatial Milan apartment. Each outfit is repeated only once, he said.
Versace fans include Jane Fonda, who has just ordered 12, and Cher, who has picked out three from a trunk show Versace’s sister, Donatella, held recently in Los Angeles.
Prices average about $4,000 to $5,000 for a day dress, $20,000 to $30,000 for an embroidered evening dress.
The collections conclude today with Givenchy and Rome’s Valentino showing couture in Paris for the first time.
