The Fall Collections / Paris : Out of This World : Van Noten Explores India, but What Planet Is Comme des Garcons On?
Like a traveling circus, the style watchers have moved from Milan on to Paris, where nine days of shows began Monday with collections designed by natives of Japan, Belgium, Italy and Germany. What passes for French fashion these days is more a state of mind than a nationality in what has become an increasingly international business.
Is fashion business or is it art? the audience was prompted to ponder at the presentation of Rei Kawakubo’s creations for Comme des Garcons. As Lassie’s master used to say when that perky collie wouldn’t quit barking, “I think she’s trying to tell us something.”
Point one is that Kawakubo isn’t like anyone else. She showed her designs at an oceanographic museum. Models with gilded “Bride of Frankenstein” hairdos and red streaks under their eyes didn’t walk down a runway, but rather filed, one by one, into a square formed by the audience’s chairs, where they then paused long enough to be scrutinized. No music played, making the grunts of the corps of photographers clearly audible.
Kawakubo’s second proposition is that clothing need not be functional. Coats and jackets of heavy upholstery fabrics were wrapped and fastened with jumbo diaper pins. Puffy cream folds of material cosseted the lower legs, as if a duvet had been snatched from the bed and made to serve as a skirt. Such outfits would keep a body warm, of course, but you couldn’t really work in these things, much less drive the Range Rover. I could envision a woman encased in a Comme des Garcons robe striking a pose at a cocktail party, but holding a glass would be a challenge. Most sleeves were cut so long that the models’ hands were lost deep within. Others were shown with gloves in contrasting colors.
The patterns of brocade and cut velvet (think flocked wallpaper) in red, gold, magenta or deep blue were offered several to an outfit and had an antique feel. Since the clothes were oversized--armholes drooped near the waist, if they existed at all--the models resembled adolescents in a production of Shakespeare, wearing rented costumes meant for adults. How nice that Kawakubo designs for a woman with an interest in amateur theatricals, or for whom dressing like other people would be anathema.
Dries Van Noten, the man from Antwerp, added an exotic touch to his perfectly tailored clothing by draping filmy saris over pants worn with matching jackets. In the real world, women will undoubtedly snap up the lean suits and trim trench coats and bag the extra layer, but the unstructured skirts were an entertaining runway flourish. And Van Noten does believe in mixed patterns and a profusion of color. He piled on brocades and flower prints with such abandon that a formula for wearability would be to subtract three and divide by four.
His simpler pieces were among his best. A two-toned sweater was primarily plain, tobacco mohair then segued into delicate turquoise cables that tracked from above the elbows down to the wrists.
Examined individually, Van Noten’s eclectic get-ups looked as if a model had rubbed the sleep from her eyes and said, “Guess I’ll put on whatever isn’t in the laundry bag.” But when more than 20 women, swathed in flowered chiffons, sparkling Lurex and vivid wools marched out en masse at show’s end, the parade was a glorious sight. If this were the local style in some free-spirited country, you’d want to go there.
*
The head of public relations for Christian Dior in Paris for the last two decades has just been posted to Cairo. Gianfranco Ferre’s following is tremendous in the Middle East, where women adore the sort of dramatic, feminine clothes he designs for both Dior and his eponymous Italian line.
The Ferre show in Milan acknowledged the Italian love for real sports clothes. Ski pants meant for snowless city sidewalks were tucked into low, Timberland-like boots. A lot of camel and black were seen in Milan, but only Ferre paired the colors in a bold lumberjack check, shaped into slender suits and precisely cut jackets. Ferre has the most luxurious way with textures, combining fabrics like leather, shearling, cashmere, velvet and dyed pony skin in a way that softly disguises the superb construction of his clothes.
The racetrack, represented by jodhpurs, riding boots and jockey caps, was the inspiration behind some of Ferre’s best designs for Dior. He used fake fur wonderfully, in a “mink” T-shirt pulled over camel leggings, for sweeping khaki coats given lush mink linings and by showing spare black separates with spotted leopard-printed jackets and spanking red accessories.
*
The fashion rule that a woman old enough to have worn a style the first time it appeared is too old to wear a later interpretation seems to apply to the ‘70s homages gracing the runway.
Karl Lagerfeld was the latest designer to salute the decade in a collection for Chloe that was, well, young. The models even wore little-girl hairdos held with barrettes and gigantic gypsy hoop earrings that suggested a dip into Maman’s jewelry box.
Maxicoats, jumpsuits, and ruffled wrap dresses and tunics brought to mind the era when Farrah Fawcett was an Angel, but ankle-length day dresses that have the long, lean silhouette so emblematic of this season didn’t seem retro. They were just very pretty.
* Next: Christian Lacroix, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier.
