Romancing the Summer of Love : Fashion: High-octane flower power fueled this week’s spring collections in Paris as designers sent a dazzling array of hippie-inspired looks down the runways. Strongest trend? Soft, wide-legged pants.
Take one pair of wide-leg pants (use bell bottoms if elephant legs aren’t available.) Add one dress, cut from your mother’s table linens.
With leftovers from last spring, form a two-layer look--two skirts or a skirt over pants. Use a sheer fabric, preferably black.
Season to taste with macrame cuffs, crocheted collars, rickrack suede sashes, halter tops, or thick maxi-heel shoes, and serve with a Paris label.
That’s the French formula for a new spring wardrobe.
One theme dominated this latest round of shows that ended Wednesday. Call it the ‘70s revival--retailers do, hoping to sell it as a fresh idea. Or call it the ‘60s look, since so much of it recalls the last days of the flower child empire.
Or just call it hippie clothes--rich hippie clothes at that.
Chanel, Valentino, Dior, plus newer names such as Ann Demeulemeester, a young talent from Belgium, and more established names such as Christian Dior, have been poking through the archives bringing back anything from the late ‘60s or early ‘70s that seemed worth saving.
Whatever else comes of this unified fashion front, it makes it easy for women to figure out exactly what to wear--or not to wear:
* Wide-leg pants for day.
* Long, flared-hem skirts for special occasions.
* High-waisted jackets with skirts or pants.
* Softer shapes.
* Outfits in layers of sheer fabric for an opaque effect
The best designers added their own inventive twists to this basic retro recipe. At Chanel, there were hippies in hip-hop high tops and exposed Jockey-style briefs. (Of course, in this case, the underwear had Chanel printed on the waistband.) The white underpants, with matching sports bras, peeked through sheer long black dresses to put a ‘90s spin on Chanel evening wear.
The show’s accessories looked as if they could have been plucked from an airport store: comically oversized Chanel quilted bags, scarfs printed with Chanel shoes and jewelry, gold sandals with the company name printed all over the thick soles. It all made the models look like cartoon characters.
Somewhere underneath the tons of tackiness were some of the season’s new shapes and silhouettes, but it was an effort to find them. And not necessarily worth the effort.
Elephant-leg white linen pants were a dominant theme for day, and Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld showed them with pastel cropped jackets.
The newest skirts were long, double layers of sheer fabric that flared at the hem. Lagerfeld showed them with a two-layer top in pastel tweed--a long, chain-belted tunic with shorter matching bolero in yellow, pink or blue for a skinny, early ‘70s silhouette.
“This is escapism,” said Rose Marie Bravo, the new president of Saks Fifth Avenue. “We want to go back to being young, thin, lovely disco dancers.
At Valentino, sheerness ruled the runway. He focused on sheer pants for both day and evening, often in African prints--another theme running through many Paris collections this season.
Elephant-print pants barely concealed a bodysuit with tight square-cut legs. For evening, he showed sheer black pants sparkling with white hand prints all over. Very tight, very brief satin shorts showed through from underneath, and Valentino topped them with backless halters.
His pastel fit and flare linen dresses for day--with wide straps or short sleeves--were among the prettiest dresses in Paris. A number of designers are showing these long graceful shapes for spring, and the best have a soft silhouette fitted to the waist and are flared at the mid-calf or ankle.
At Christian Dior, designer Gianfranco Ferre’s motto is: When in doubt, decorate. This season he went way over the top with his pale iridescent colored evening suits.
As always, the simpler styles worked better. They included an unadorned navy linen dress with a white-stitched leather inset on the back and a menswear-inspired pants suit in navy tweed with crocheted shirt cuffs under the jacket sleeves.
Emanuel Ungaro offered another flower power update. His watercolor floral printed pants with very wide legs went under a gold embroidered blue vest that doubles as a blouse. That and a floral print suit with a long crystal pleated skirt and high waisted jacket were examples of softer shapes seen here throughout the week.
Some retailers believe working women will wear these new shapes to the office. Others doubt it.
“There is absolutely nothing for the working woman,” said Marjorie Dean, head of the Tobe Report, a trend tracking publication based in New York.
Nonetheless, the softness of so many of these shapes has a definite appeal. It suggests the possibility that women could move another step away from the Establishment idea that power is conveyed only by hard edges.
British designer Vivienne Westwood may have pushed it too far. She showed his and her pink and blue pajamas in her show. And there were mother and daughter fairy tale dresses in white tulle with gold stencil designs. These idyllic family fashions were more about cocooning than climbing the corporate ladder. Soft gray suits with ankle-length petticoated skirts were about as close as she came to office politics.
Westwood wasn’t the only out-of-towner to get attention in Paris this season. Antwerp-based Demeulemeester, and New Yorker Oscar de la Renta got their share too.
Demeulemeester’s dark, intricate, club-inspired collection mixed gray pin-stripes, black lingerie lace and the satin used for dress lining. These combinations were crafted into pants suits with lean cropped pants, vests with lace hems, collarless dresses with ankle-length vests over them, and a range of boudoir inspired evening wear in layers of sheer and solid fabrics. She showed her suits with white shirt sleeves dangling below the cuffs.
De la Renta perfected the understated rich look for spring. His narrow suits had gold seashell buttons on collarless jackets. His diagonal stripe sun dresses with crisscross shoulders were classic navy and white.
Most of his hemlines were ankle- length except for daytime suits, whose skirts extended to just below the knee. He knows American women and their practical tastes.
One of the best surprises of the week was the last major show, on Wednesday, when Yves Saint Laurent presented a stellar collection.
Saint Laurent’s frail health has led to erratic presentations over the past several years. This time the ideas were smart and clear--pants suits for day, Chinese inspired silks for evening in a range of beautiful colors.
A marigold leather smock jacket went over ankle-length wide red pants. A navy check suit had wide leg pants and a cropped military jacket trimmed in navy silk braid. Violet pants and a melon color jacket were another striking example of Saint Laurent’s extraordinary gift for blending color.
For dinner, a Chinese silk dress in red with mandarin details had a sash waist, and his evening outfits featured gold lame sarongs with China blue, mint green or goldenrod silk damask tops. They were shaped like narrow T-shirts with elbow-length sleeves, and cropped just above the waist.
The audience leapt to its feet to applaud as Saint Laurent walked the runway alone. It was an exhilarating moment and a show that could remind anyone of how this designer earned his reputation as the best of his generation.
