They’re not just for her
“It’s not a men’s collection, it’s a collection men can wear,” Karl Lagerfeld said after his Chanel show Friday, in which angelic, pale-faced boys with long hair, barely distinguishable from their female counterparts, modeled the boxy boucle jackets that made the house famous. Lagerfeld pointed out that back in the 1920s Coco Chanel took many of her signature looks from menswear -- the tweeds, the cardigans, the wide-legged sailor’s trousers -- so it’s logical to put men back in the women’s versions. Still, one wonders if guys will be comfortable borrowing from the other side of the closet. (Honey, you promised I could wear the salt-and-pepper tweed jacket today!) But crazier things have happened. Men use beauty products. They watch “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” It’s a metrosexual world after all.
On the runways this season at Gucci, Helmut Lang, Balenciaga and Jean-Paul Gaultier, designers are mixing menswear with women’s wear and male models with female models, as if to proclaim that we’re all one big happy family. It’s a fine message, but it also makes good business sense, reflecting men’s growing interest in fashion (the male shopping magazine Cargo launches this month), and the fact that men and women now look at fashion together, as they do other popular culture. Designers know that the more people they can involve in following fashion, the more likely they are to make a sale.
Besides offering tweed jackets in oatmeal and black plaid for the boys and the girls, with matching scarves and skinny stovepipe pants, Lagerfeld delved into knits -- long sweater coats and skinny minis in diamond and zigzag prints in a red, green and white palette that seemed too thrift store for Chanel. Things brightened when he moved into a look he dubbed in the show notes “Coco Fauntleroy”: a black velvet suit that, despite the name, looked fabulously modern, with a dropped-waist jacket, skinny pants and a ruffled white shirt, worn with suspenders made from ropes of pearls and black patent high-heeled kiltie shoes.
But the lord/lady story isn’t the only one on the runways here.
At Celine, there was another high-profile exit of an American designer from the dusty European brand he helped to reinvent. Michael Kors presented his last collection for Celine on Thursday and walked away from a six-year partnership with international fashion conglomerate Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton to focus solely on his signature label. (He told Women’s Wear Daily he felt he never got the support from executives that Louis Vuitton’s Marc Jacobs and Dior’s John Galliano received.) But before leaving, he offered classic brown crocodile pencil skirts and cashmere pullovers, three-quarter-sleeve mink lady jackets, leopard-print trench coats, lace ball skirts and oversized frame handbags that, though bland, could easily have filled C.Z. Guest’s closets.
Helmut Lang offered a sexier collection than usual, with lots of hot little shearling jackets in electric blue or purple with asymmetrical, jagged edges that flopped open to the sides, paired with skinny pants, and draped black jersey dresses worn with over-the-knee suede boots trimmed at the top in ooh la la white lace. Elaborately draped knit gowns with tight long sleeves in brown, black and white abstract prints that looked almost like animal stripes were worn with funny looking short boots with skirts of horse hair falling over the calves. And then there were evening gowns, a rarity for the designer, in pretty white or blue silk with rivulets of organza running down the front, trimmed with fans of horsehair on the shoulders.
Olivier Theyskens has come a long way from the sleeveless leather Goth monstrosity that he made for Madonna to wear to an awards show. In just three seasons at Rochas, he has succeeded in creating a signature look for a house that until now had little or no meaning for most people. His clothes are startlingly beautiful: a black jacket with short sleeves and a sheer organza peplum as delicate as butterfly wings; a lavender silk dress with molded bra cups in the front and a wind-catching sail back; and a glittery black satin dinner suit with tulle peeking out from the sleeves and the skirt hem, almost as if it were a romantic illusion.
One is usually enough, but when there are 100 spinning disco balls, it’s difficult not to be swept up in the moment. Dries van Noten does boho chic about as well as anyone in the world, and always with a surprise ending. This time it was the unveiling of a wall of disco balls. Luckily the clothes were an apt lead-up, save for some unfortunate cropped leather balloon pants.
As usual, the collection was based on a foundation of sumptuous textiles. Highlights included an unstructured coat in a blue and pink squiggle pattern and short pleated skirts, one with a band of blue and a band of red jacquard, and another in black with silver and gold embroidered starbursts hidden between the pleats.
Watercolor floral silk dresses in shades of peach, pink, black and blue had attached capelets, and silk pajama pants were cropped, embroidered on the sides, and worn with crystal-heeled pumps and shawl-collared patchwork print coats dusted with sequins. It was enough to make one want to get up and boogie, especially when Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” came on.
Why couldn’t there have been male models on the runway at this show?
