Fall Figures : Fashion: Lacroix’s collection features warm colors, unitards and leggings. Gigli offers cocoon coats, narrow pants and long jackets.
Christian Lacroix showed how to think ‘60s and dress ‘90s in one of the strongest collections of this season. He presented it Sunday morning in his couture salon that featured orange walls and shrimp-colored fashion runway.
Using warm shades of pink, violet, moss green and chestnut, with bits of chartreuse thrown in, he built a collection around unitards and leggings; short, trapeze-shape dresses and coats; fitted suits, and long, full evening skirts.
Without question, the unitard is about to become as basic to a modern woman’s wardrobe as a slip used to be. Every top European designer now uses it as a starting point for a wardrobe.
Lacroix’s versions were in harlequin prints, shown with only a silk velvet hood--for women in perfect shape--or, as a first layer followed by a suit or a hooded duffel coat.
His daytime wardrobe relied on suits, some in Lurex-shot patchworks of plaids and checks, some with floral-print velvet jackets and nubby wool checked skirts. A new-looking pantsuit had a longer, fitted jacket and full trousers in matching moss green plaid, spiced up with a metallic tapestry vest.
The best evening suits were cut close to the body with knee-baring skirts in mahogany-colored silk brocade.
Lacroix added ponchos, velvet hobo hats decorated with small gold charms, and knee-high, black suede boots appliqued in gold leather for day and night. He used lots of thick, cable-stitched tights under boots for his favorite trapeze-shaped dresses made of fluid woolen prints.
For informal formal wear he revived poor boy sweaters (heavily ribbed, with a crew neck) shot with Lurex, to wear with enormous, iridescent taffeta evening skirts. His two-layer dresses in gold lace and sheer silk had a dressier feel.
Romeo Gigli has reduced his philosophy about modern dressing to its basic ingredients: cocoon coats, short and narrow pants, and redingotejackets.
His fall line is built around these unusual components, in uncommon fabrics--especially iridescent silk, wool and suede, richly embroidered with Moroccan, Middle European and Middle Eastern stitchery.
The focus of nearly every outfit was one of his extraordinary cocoon coats. People consider them collector’s items that ought to be hung on the wall, but Gigli and his assistant toss them on over blue jeans.
This is the Italian-based designer’s second season in Paris. (Gigli used to show in Milan.) But his decorative, romantic, ultra-feminine approach to fashion fits in well with the French.
Both Karl Lagerfeld and Gianfranco Ferre designed one collection under their own names and another collection for a long-established French fashion house (Lagerfeld for Chanel; Ferre for Dior).
Of course, the danger is that they will design old, venerable clothes for old, venerable houses.
But both men seemed more comfortable than ever borrowing good ideas from their signature line and adapting them to their new fall collections for the other houses.
It worked out well.
For Chanel, Lagerfeld showed elongated jackets over very short pleated skirts, a look he used often in his own line, shown earlier this week. Evening suits that mixed sheer with solid black silk were part of both collections, too. All his variations for Chanel were a little more structured and ladylike.
He used the gold chain links of Chanel handbags to trim little black suits with cropped jackets and short narrow skirts. Red woolen suits were trimmed in multiple rows of black and white rickrack, as were some new-looking, short, narrow coats worn over skirts just an inch or two longer.
The bold houndstooth jackets he introduced several seasons ago were in strong supply. This time they were shown in black and ivory, over short black skirts, some narrow, some pleated.
One strong new look for evening was an off-the-shoulder tunic in bright yellow satin with a slightly bell-shaped black satin skirt. High-heeled black satin shoes with a strap across the instep added some sizzle.
Ferre’s fall collection is his second for Dior. Unlike the first, this one showed off more of his personal talents and tastes.
Ferre’s skill with uncluttered sportswear in luxury fabrics translated to black leather turtleneck tops tucked into narrow wool pants, camel colored leather parkas with mink-trimmed hoods, and a number of straight-line narrow suits, especially one in red with covered buttons down the back of the skirt. The clothes were simple but not boring.
A long, narrow jacket with a high button closure was more Italian than French (Dior probably would have put a curve at the waist), but Ferre is, after all, based in Milan.
Ferre is not to be envied, having to work his own talents into the long-established Dior look. And there were some misses, especially in the evening wear that had too much or not enough going on. But this season Ferre seemed more comfortable with integrating his personal style into the Dior tradition.
Valentino could have ended his show just after it began, with the suits. They looked energetic, modern and easy to wear, and they were the best part of his collection.
He used a narrow-cut shirttail jacket in woodsy green tweed over a pleated, checked skirt. He put a small-checked blouson jacket over a short, circle skirt in rose tweed. Both options looked even newer, worn with over-the-knee-suede boots. A day-into-evening-suit had a sequined, wool checked skirt with sewn-down pleats, and a waist-length plaid jacket.
Some evening wear ideas worked much better than others. Knife-pleated skirts worn with a pair of lace tops modeled after sweater sets had a sporty elegance. But a group of black silk evening dresses sequined with images from ancient Etruscan vases didn’t work as well primarily because the clothes they decorated fought for all the attention. This may not prove to be one of Valentino’s most important collections, but women who love his clothes will have more than enough to choose from.
