FASHION : Paris Pooh-Poohs Plain
Just when you think you’ve had it to here with fashion, that you’re going to the Gap and you’re never coming back, along comes something like Romeo Gigli’s fall collection.
The most visually stunning event of the season, it was a sort of astral fantasy beamed into the rotunda of the Paris stock exchange. Everything seemed to be scraped from sparkling rocks, powders and dusts that Gigli had gathered on the moon.
Sleek flat-heeled boots shimmered like mica, leather jackets had a luminous metallic sheen. And see-through coats made from what looked like a puffy plastic wrap for shipping blazed with aurora borealis dots.
Out of this world were evening dresses with pliable hoop skirts, particularly one silvery slip in asymmetric layers that created a spiral motion as the model walked. Most dresses were sheer and worn over a black strapless bodice and leggings, basic enough to put under a tailored jacket by day. A sliver of skin showed at the models’ midriff where the two pieces did not quite meet.
Elaborate as these dresses appeared, they were constructed like Chinese lanterns that could collapse and pack in a suitcase.
For day Gigli beamed down to Earth with some elegant pantsuits. Elongated jackets in dark mineral colors curved at the hips, then tapered over narrow pants.
This was one of several key shows of the season. Gigli has missed the mark the last few times out, with collections that sacrificed all for art and seemed stuck in the Medieval Ages, the historic era that fascinates him.
Such problems can quickly change a designer’s status from modern genius to marginal eccentric. This collection restored his lofty reputation, which just goes to show what a trip to the moon can do.
Christian Lacroix faced a similar problem. And, like Gigli, he solved it by updating his well-established look. He kept the French provincial flower prints and the talisman charms, the bustles, gold embroidery and coquettish black lace. But he cut out the wedding-cake dresses and toned down the blinding print mixes.
He also managed to find his way back from the opposite extreme, simple to the point of dull, that flattened several recent collections.
Lacroix’s strength is still evening wear. His short black dresses in fine stretch knit had tulle necklines and velvet appliques. He showed them with Chinese-red satin mules.
One of the best of his quietly rich looks was a long black slip dress with a latticework back, worn under a nubby black wool jacket with gold-encrusted pockets.
He put beading and embroidery on jackets for day too. One had cactus beaded on a pocket. It went over brown suede pants and an elegant brown velvet shirt.
There were a few wincing flashbacks to Lacroix’s Marie Antoinette phase. In one, he tied a frilly black apron of lace and bows over evening pants. But so much was right about this collection that you could forgive such momentary lapses.
His new approach seems to be what retailers want. “Customers are responding to simpler, pared-down clothes now,” I. Magnin’s Rose Marie Bravo said after the show. “They want a certain amount of fantasy and glitz, but they want to temper it.”
The Chanel show started like the first stage of a siege, with crowds surging into the room, ready to tear down the walls. All they really wanted was to get out of the icy rain.
Spike Lee squeezed through the pre-show crowd dressed in a very tony outfit: diamond stud earring, black leather bomber with an X cut from an American flag on the back. (His friend, Veronica Webb, was modeling in the show.)
From the front line near the runway, Veronique Perez of Chanel shouted into a walkie-talkie, sounding like the commander of the allied fashion troops.
Maybe it was a warm-up for the show. Commandante boots--knee-high, lace-up, with protective leather flaps at the top--were among the new accessories.
To go with those unsettling boots, Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld showed lots of black leather. A long trench coat with gold hardware on the belt, a mid-calf-length skirt mixed with a navy wool jacket, a knee-length dress and coat, lots of pants. They looked right together.
Some of the best styles were, dare we say, closest to Coco Chanel’s classics. Among them, stretchy black mid-skirts, dresses and jumpers, many of them worn over a tailored white shirt. Nubby brown tweed suits had narrow knee-length skirts, and Lagerfeld showed some of those jackets with leather pants.
He put skirts of every length in the collection, but the newest is a mid-calf tube with all the action in the back: brass zipper from hem to knee, and slash pockets with more zippers on the hips. It is very much like one Lagerfeld showed in his signature collection.
The long, belted, lean sweaters worn over them made for a narrow, drop-waist proportion. Suede shoes had chunky, high platform heels.
All this was perfectly wearable and rather classic.
Switch to disco fever for night. Red evening skirts with tattered hems had coin-dot sequined trim. Long, skinny sweaters, gold metal belts and lots of drippy gold jewelry went over long, tiered red chiffon skirts. Music swirling through the air to help create the mood.
Los Angeles night crawlers tried and failed to bring back the ‘70s scene a year ago. Maybe Chanel will have better luck.
“Lagerfeld is a political satirist,” Lynn Manulis said of the show. She carried the collection at her famed New York boutique, Martha.
“I was shocked by some of the energies. But I don’t think Lagerfeld meant them to be one bit facile. This is what it’s really like in Paris today.”
Valentino’s Robin Hood-themed collection (OK, so the movie opened a year ago) was light-handed enough to make shopping in Sherwood Forest seem like a plausible idea.
Leopard, leather and pheasant feathers, along with the variegated, petal-like hems of Robin’s tunics, have been Val-galed for fall.
The leopard ran wild over leggings and pumps-to-match for day; they were worn with robin’s egg-blue suits and on a sheer evening skirt topped by a classic camel-colored cardigan with deep-brown fur cuffs. Short leather skirts with Robin Hood hems went with tweed jackets for day.
Maid Marian wasn’t overlooked either. A wonderful quilted satin evening jacket inspired by her low-cut corsets and a black slip dress that laced up the back with wide black satin ribbon were what every maiden in distress would be lucky to wear.
