Flying Colors
PARIS--The global gloom has settled on fashion designers in the City of Light. So many have embraced dark, somber colors and saggy silhouettes that the occasional colorful and joyous collection seems almost manic by comparison.
As the fall collections got underway Thursday, the funereal black ensembles, swooping dark coats and militaristic details continued the sober theme that took root weeks ago in New York with, for example, the all-black Ralph Lauren collection. That dark feeling was reflected here in the clothes of Yohji Yamamoto, Ennio Capasa for Costume National and even Michael Kors for Celine.
Timing is also heightening the contrast: These heavy-spirited fall previews are taking place just as the ruffled and frilly spring collections are arriving in stores. Retailers and editors are studying closely the fall trends of skirt suits, scarves, bomber jackets, boots and big coats for an acceptable middle ground that offers creativity, an upbeat mood and a reason to shop.
Though edgy fashionistas may continue with their black-loving, dour ways, some stores that rely on a broader customer base are planning a counter-strategy. “All-black clothes for the New York customer--or the American customer--after Sept. 11 are not going to make it,” said Bloomingdale’s fashion chief Kalman Ruttenstein. He and Neiman Marcus executives said colorful, uplifting clothes are selling best. Bloomingdale’s New York, Florida and Century City stores will open Kaleidoscope boutiques filled with colorful sweaters, T-shirts and accessories to brighten the fall season.
More than ever, the iconoclast designers who operate outside of fashion’s trend dictates have delivered the perfectly quirky, more upbeat clothes that reflect these odd times. More like conceptual artists than dressmakers, Dutch designers Viktor & Rolf magically transformed the meaning of clothes by employing cinema’s blue-screen technology.
Whether a model wore a sweeping evening coat and dress, tasseled snakeskin boots or a patchworked satin blouse, their common royal blue color enabled them to act as screens for video projections. A woman could wear a glamorous gown full of snobbish class associations, but she could change the meaning by becoming a human screen for a movie about anything--Egypt’s pyramids, mountain scenery or fish, as the designers demonstrated.
“For us, it was to celebrate the imagination,” said Viktor Horsting. For the finale, a model marched out in a military jacket with cloth cylinders resembling dynamite sticks. She was transformed from a scary suicide bomber when the video beam erased details of the clothes with images of a cityscape.
Obviously, clothing can gain or lose power when its context changes. Perhaps that’s why John Galliano’s Christian Dior collection redefined “ethnic” with his delightful mix of Peruvian and Etruscan warrior helmets, rustic Indian and Eskimo moccasin boots and a continuous, elegant blur of National Geographic folkloric costume references. Galliano’s boldness pushed Dior clearly into a new era with his luxuriously decorated leather or denim pants, full skirts encrusted with ethnic embroidery and luxurious hand-knitted cardigan coats.
“It was a wonderfully eclectic collection,” said Robert Burke, senior vice president of fashion direction at Bergdorf Goodman, “but it was also a very understandable collection.” Galliano successfully abandoned his usual tortured styling and also refined the peasant theme that’s been in fashion this year.
In a similar vein, Hussein Chalayan presented the folkloric fashion equivalent of a bell curve on the runway. He started and ended with the same model in the full regalia of Eastern Turkey’s ethnic costume and gradually subtracted, then added, decorative elements. The midpoint? A classic black knee-length coat. The deviations? Scraps affixed like jagged lace on a distressed leather skirt, cloth harnesses cinching dresses, and bits of bright embroidery on vests, dresses or coats.
Backstage, Chalayan was taken aback at the suggestion that the clothes were complicated, and he was mute when asked to describe the pattern for one of his intricately patched, pieced and harnessed looks. He proved on the runway, however, that the seemingly random construction can be repeated: He showed the same complex design, but in two dresses in different colors.
The best collections here have come from designers who are embracing their own essence. Jean-Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Noten and Karl Lagerfeld showed strong collections that included their recognizable but freshened signatures. Gaultier’s models shed their perfectly, classically tailored coats, motorcycle jackets and pea coats and hung them on a rotating dry cleaner’s rack that conveyed hangers along the runway. Gaultier said he employed the clever idea to help show what’s underneath the veil of our coats.
More important, he illustrated how a woman can be in command of her own style. She can add arm warmers, tailcoats, mesh T-shirts or snug fur vests to cinch a full dress, or add formality or funkiness to a simple white shirt and pants. With artist Christo as an inspiration, Gaultier wound scarves into ropes and wrapped skirts, necks, heads, coats and more with them. “The collection is about everything that is packaging,” the designer said backstage. These are unfussy, easy-to-assemble packages, too, as the quick, on-stage changes demonstrated.
Karl Lagerfeld poured into his namesake Lagerfeld Gallery his signature sleek and small-shouldered silhouette, wispy chiffon dresses (a la Chanel) and the kind of weightless and woven fur coats he perfected at Fendi. With glittery T-shirts, skirts or boleros as accompaniment, the collection could have seemed precious had he not injected real-life styling with plenty of edgy denim jeans made in collaboration with Diesel.
Embracing his serious Belgian roots, Van Noten presented a neutral-colored collection of gray, black or olive oversized sweaters, jackets and dresses. His talent was enlivening those safe and sometimes dour basics by wrapping them in a gorgeously embellished long scarf or topping them with a coat or sweater made fantastic by heavy floral embroidery, dramatic volume or the charm of hand-knitted flourishes.
Though Michael Kors and Ennio Capasa have always created sleek, classic clothes, their collections seemed unduly repressed. Capasa’s mostly black Costume National collection suffered from a lackluster presentation that betrayed the timeless beauty in his urban wardrobe: lean pants, great leather jackets and a sexy, simple top. In the light of day this fall, Capasa fans may well relish the understated fun of a furry bomber with snap-apart sleeves, a long fuzzy cardigan embellished with a sparkling medallion, or pinstripes made of gold piping on a tailored black velvet jacket.
Kors, a New Yorker who always seems chipper and once made a Celine safari collection seem like a fun lark, brought a downbeat state of mind to the French collection. In his mix of soft and hard, hard won. Distressed leathers, jagged zippers on aviator pants, rugged bomber jackets and colors of black, wine, moss and gunmetal overwhelmed the softer pieces. His real achievement was making the ‘70s shirt jackets, platform boots and shirts under sweaters (think Lauren Hutton) look modern, not like retro retreads.
The new sobriety can be overwhelming. Junya Watanabe, in a homage to Yohji Yamamoto’s early work, showed only black or gray holey, mouse-eaten slipdresses and skirt suits. Though his black patchworked coats were graceful and romantic, the idea of tattered, ravaged clothing leaves a sour taste.
Even the masterful Yamamoto fell under the weight of a collection that L.A. retailer Tommy Perse called “heavy,” in spirit and in fabric. The padded gray mechanic’s jackets worn with backward ball caps were odd enough to call Gomer Yamamoto of Mayberry. The hugely oversized blazers with sagging shoulder pads seemed sad, more so on the waifish models with dirty faces and ashen hair. Not all hope was lost: Suddenly, as Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times” boomed, some of the same sorry silhouettes appeared with angel wings stenciled on the back of bomber jackets or long coats.
Perhaps Yamamoto is an optimist, after all. Maybe those wings weren’t from angels whisking us up to heaven after death, but from guardian angels telling us to have hope. Sadness lasts only as long as we let it. Perhaps it is time to let color and happiness into our lives.
