Frothing at the Seams With Softness and Power
It’s a simple thing, a ruffle. But in the hands of designers here, it can assume vastly different personalities. In the first four days of shows, the strands of frills have run through virtually every collection with a flavor that can be sweet and girlish, or sexy, delicate and, when they’re torn into shreds, disturbing.
The frills have taken on more womanly forms, having evolved from the tuxedo shirtfronts where they’ve nestled for the past two seasons. Now ruffles, along with their cousins fringe, flounce and pleat, are giving clothes an undeniable element of softness, movement and volume.
The difficult thing is making these airy clothes look powerful. It’s not impossible if you’re Alexander McQueen. In his highly anticipated first collection as part of the Gucci Group, McQueen kept many of the signatures that he developed during his tenure at Givenchy. The models’ tightly rolled and shellacked hair and dense eye makeup were as severe as the squared-off shoulders on his trademark jackets. He’s no less the provocateur now.
Working an aggressive flamenco and bull-fighting theme that included a model tastelessly impaled by a sword, McQueen had his share of predictable tiered ruffled skirts, matador pants and bolero jackets. His choice of accessories and styling combinations delivered his tough message. Bodysuits with irregular geometric cutouts gave a clingy, sexy edge to the frilly skirts, while leather harnesses, belts and mannish suit vests restrained the frothy dresses, sometimes with a fetish air. Rows of corset lacing ran up jacket sides like so many ribs, while a few sheer, polka-dotted and generously ruffled dresses showed that even this bad boy has a sweet side.
Stella McCartney, like McQueen, also partnered with Gucci Group this year and, on Monday, debuted her signature collection. With father Sir Paul in the audience along with the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, McCartney played up contrasts and extremes in a collection that was refined, crude, tough and delicate, all at the same time. Taking a high-glamour approach, she partnered the finest structured, intense blue satin jacket with the most wispy, pale lace skirt or softened a suit’s Savile Row tailoring with insets of fine lace along the trousers. McCartney had a lot to say in this collection, and she literally wrote it out in delicate cutwork that spelled “wet” across bikini bottoms and “whistle” (that’s Cockney slang for suit) along a suit. The effect was more of an adolescent prank than an advance for fashion. In a similar but less controversial vein, McCartney worked cartoonish etchings of monsters onto luxuriously beaded tops and tunics. Now that fellow Brit Hussein Chalayan has departed TSE and secured a new sponsor (a Turkish textile group), he’s reestablished his own collection. As an art project, this collection offered intriguing commentary on the harmony in disharmony. His shredded and distressed garments echoed the edgy feelings in the live, atonal Philip Glass musical accompaniment, as well as the eerie contrast of the modern, glass-partitioned stage clashing against the decrepit interior of an old church where his show was held.
Chalayan rearranged the elements of garments until they were reduced to blown-apart vestiges of a skirt, dress or jacket. Slings of strands, strings and straps crossed remnants of party dresses and jackets that were decorated with ribbons, rips and ravaged ruffles. Though many in the audience cheered wildly and called for Chalayan to take a bow, these complex and oddly beautiful clothes were still disturbing. It’s virtually impossible to imagine any woman wearing an expensive, tattered toga of scraps as her heartfelt symbol of the world’s uncertainty.
Though a spokeswoman said the collection wasn’t meant as an intentional reference to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the association is now inevitable. While some fashion journalists are avoiding all references to the destruction of last month, reality invades even the protected sphere of a fashion show. Pagers and cell phones rang among the audience assembled for the Dries Van Noten show Sunday as news spread of the military strikes in Afghanistan. When an announcer came on the public address system to apologize for a technical difficulty, most were relieved that the show hadn’t been canceled--or worse, some other unsettling news.
The Belgian designer delivered an oasis of calm. He made it easy to understand a wardrobe built of seemingly infinite combinations of wrapped blouses, smock tops, long crinkled skirts, structured vests, unstructured jackets and even mesh leggings. The color palette of beautiful spice tones mixed with inky blues and blacks or vivid pinks and peaches was one of his more intriguing. A predominance of long, loose shapes didn’t hinder the sex appeal, which arrived with bikini tops and sheer fabrics.
In this newly challenging world, not even a purely pretty collection such as Suzanne Clements’ and Inacio Ribeiro’s can escape recollections of unpleasantness. The British duo was forced to move their Clements Ribeiro show here from London when their shoes and many of their crew were stranded in New York after the attacks. Covered with lipstick kiss marks after the show, Ribeiro was ecstatic.
Invoking St. Tropez, San Francisco’s summer of love and Mick and Bianca Jagger’s London, the designers embellished minis, camisoles, shawls, boots and bags with half a yard of leather fringe and found ways to make the humble peasant blouse look like royal garments. The hand-embroidered details were so rich, the silken patterned fabrics so delicate and the attitude so worldly that it’s fair to call these clothes couture for would-be hippies.
Now in their third season as the designers for Cacharel, Clements and Ribeiro cheerfully impart their philosophy of mix-and-match prints onto the increasingly popular French collection. No delicate hothouse flowers will be wearing the orchid prints big enough for ballroom curtains that the designers mix with capri leggings and perhaps a chevron-printed skirt. The collection, with its naive poodle prints, perky puffy sleeves and trippy high wedgie sandals, can be very sweet 16. For older gals, the designers offered this tip: Cut the saccharine with some black-coffee separates in serious pinstripes.
Out-of-towners are doing some of the best work in Paris. Admittedly, it’s hard to find a native Frenchman at a French house, except for Christian Lacroix, who concentrated on more solids in his beautiful collection. On Friday, in the first important show of the Paris season, American duo Richard Bengtsson and Edward Pavlick staged their second Richard Edwards women’s collection. It was everything that was missing in Milan--subtlety, maturity and the kind of details that whisper an acknowledgment of current trends.
With a nod to their mentor, Helmut Lang, the experienced menswear designers used only classic silhouettes as the foundation for their timeless clothes. Corset lacing, narrow bands of ribbons and basket weave effects delicately trimmed white, black, pale gray, soft yellow or terra cotta dresses and separates that would make wise investments. Fashion’s favorite thespians, Dutchmen Viktor Horstig and Rolf Snoeren, always seem torn between pursuing show biz careers or returning to haute couture. In an all-white Viktor & Rolf collection staged to the live strains of an enormous pipe organ, halo-crowned church girls paraded in a heavenly collection. They indulged in exaggerated details that have become a signature: oversized buttons, hugely full skirts, enormous bows at the wrist, cascading sets of ever-larger waistbands or collars--and wait, there’s more, including stacked yards of shredded fabric loops and piles of ruffles foaming out of control.
Aside from the fun excesses and inflated silhouettes were slim trousers with pockets and seams outlined by thick rope braid, square and neat metallic damask jackets, lace shirtdresses and trim sheer blouses printed with rows of black hearts. Reading the collection symbolically, one might assume the pure white color, the church-like setting and the oversized, heavy chain-link necklaces strung with crosses implied that there is a price to pay for innocence.
It’s tempting to read Yohji Yamamoto symbolically, as well. But this season, it’s not inaccurate to suppose that the Zen master of fashion has hit the gym and discovered the body. After an enormously successful alliance with Adidas shoes for this autumn, the athletic shoemaker and the Japanese designer renewed their arrangement for more Yohji-fied trainers, wrestling boots and slip-ons. So it makes sense that Yamamoto’s intellectual gym clothes include riffs on leotards, yoga pants, leggings and warm-up jackets, some cut from the shiny satin of boxer’s trunks.
There were honest-to-god moments of “Flashdance” flashbacks, especially when the oversized, shrugged-on tops slid past. The more recognizable Yamamoto emerged as he gathered twisted strands of fabric on a dress or fringe applied along the back of a jacket into a single braid like a long ponytail. Though he had fringe, strings and wraparound jackets and dresses to spare, his collection might reign as the only one so far in Paris to feature no frothing ruffles. Funny. We didn’t miss them.
