Toujours Paris

What didn’t happen at Paris Fashion Week? The closing week was packed with a dizzying 67 shows, many of them big names with extravagant productions one would kill to get passes to. On Alexander McQueen’s stuffed-animal strewn catwalk, a model fainted in her too-tight corset. Valentino designer Alessandra Facchinetti learned that she was unceremoniously fired from journalists. Hannah MacGibbon tried to bring Chloe back to the label's sensibilities as she made her debut, showing scalloped edges on jacket sleeves, much like the dinosaur-ish silhouettes seen at London’s Christopher Kane, along with some weird metallic trash bag pants. Permeating all this creativity and chaos however was the doom and gloom of the worsening economy, and while the fashion show must always  go on, there were real worries about whether, come actual springtime, customers will be setting foot inside any of the stores. 

Yohji Yamamoto

Yohji never really made sexy clothes. He turns out mostly black, oversized mannish looks which can be considered dowdy by some, except that there’s something especially Japanese about the folds and the layering, and something very transcendental about his deft allusions to period costume. The start of this collection, which was released on a day the Dow Jones plunged 777 points, seemed to uncannily reference disheveled bankers-turned-homeless people with the uneven lapels, topstitching and asymmetric tails.

Rick Owens

Rock-inspired Rick Owens sticks to his minimal palette with a mostly black collection of cut-out dresses, one-shoulders and tie-front skorts. The look is goth-grunge chic without the depression and the angst. Hints of the primitive and the futuristic pervade, with stark habit-like headdresses and leather dustcovers over the shoes, yet there is something simply elegant about the slouchy easy lines mixed with sharp turns. An edgy, wearable spring collection for the flower-print phobes.

Nina Ricci

Short in the front, long in the back — this is Olivier Theyskens’s mullet collection for Nina Ricci. The dresses were inspired by costumes for dance and, while the relentless parade of legs and tails may in lesser hands seem repetitive and uninspired, Theyskens makes use of his signature looks and technical skills to present a romantic vision of movement and poetry. There were several Edwardian styles and wallpaper florals, but each dress had its own special tweak or twist, like a bustle, a ruffle, or a sculpted bodice that expressed a creative freedom and ingenuity within the restriction of the single silhouette.

Sophia Kokosalaki

Kokosalaki went to Egypt and plundered the tombs of Pharoahs for inspiration, and returned with a brilliant color palette of burnished gold and lapis lazuli, a trench print patterned on hieroglyphics, snaky shoulder straps and python boleros. There was a '60s vibe to the outfits as well, particularly with the shift dresses and structured shoulders, but the fabrics used looked supple and rich, like something from the future.

Kris Van Assche

The menswear designer turns his skill to crafting hard-edged menswear-inspired pieces for women. With the chola, or Mexican gangster girl as a point of reference, there were baggy boxer’s shorts, vests, and tuxedo jackets paired with a mini skirt or sheer gauzy tops. All tatted up with hair pulled back in a severe corn row bun, the Van Assche girls look like they can seriously kick your ass, or are ready for some black-tie brawling.

Bruno Pieters

Boxy shoulders, shiny fabrics and tight-fitting tailoring on a black and white palette — this was Pieters homage to Pierre Cardin. There were some cut-out details that gave the clothes a modern look but, otherwise, a rigorous structure prevailed.

Balmain

Didn’t we just finish with the whole ‘80s rehash? Maybe Christophe Decarnin missed the last few years, or maybe he just doesn’t care. Because his next collection for Balmain faces off Alexis Carrington with the Go-Gos. There were hot pink bandage dresses, a fully sequined print mini dress straight out of Dynasty 2008, studded belts, and corseted tops leading down to gauzy tutus. You almost expect Madonna to jump out and break into Papa Don’t Preach. What’s more surprising: Decarnin skimped on the tawdriness and cheese and actually made the ‘80s look, well, pretty.

Junya Watanabe

If an award were to be given for best reinvention, Japanese wunderkind Junya Watanabe would win it this season, no contest. In his new collection, Watanabe proves his range by working with African prints and draping to come up with bunchy ensembles that pair together tribal prints with bohemian plaids. Erykah Badu would certainly love this collection especially since Watanabe channels his fondness for irrepressible headwear into African turbans liberally pierced with dried flowers and pretty, painted twigs — easily recycled into table centerpieces, if necessary.

Emanuel Ungaro

Esteban Cortazar is not trying to hide his youth nor is he trying to play down his Central American roots (Colombian ancestry but raised in Miami). In his new collection for Emanuel Ungaro, his second for the brand, he actually embraces both. First, there are those soft Panama hats that became an ubiquitous element throughout the show, plopped on every model that walked the catwalk. Next, there is his love for gigantic ruffles trailing down dresses, slashing across skirts, fanning across collarbones. Count in the slouchy, shoulder-baring Panama necklines, the gaily-colored ponchos and the bold show of bared, tanned legs. Then there is his courageous use of vivid prints: bright florals melding together into abstract forms and tie-dye patterns in varying shades of blue. This is a collection that clearly strays from signature Ungaro and the jury is still up in the air. But I’m definitely all for Cortazar.

Isabel Marant

Trailer trash has never been more chic. Isabel Marant’s super-short hemlines and slouchy ankle boots and low, messy collars (complete with breasts hanging out) give a certain panache to the scruffy-haired, gum-chewing, tough girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Even her finishes (faded denim) and details (ruffles drunkenly placed and loose embroidery) are also exact representations. Expect Paris’s finest to stock up.

Garrett Pugh

Looking at his ambitious silhouettes and costume-y designs, you wonder who, exactly, British designer Garrett Pugh is designing for. Definitely not the typical Parisian with a preference for elegantly slouchy folds. Severe lines and a highly unconventional outlook made up Pugh’s hankerings for next spring: a stiff, very-geometric lantern dress, a waisted shift with an Elizabethan accordion collar and matching petticoat, a fitted minidress festooned all over with mini-flaps. It didn’t help that his predominantly black and white palette exaggerated rather than attenuate the severity of his designs.

This is not the first time Pugh has done bizarre. His designs point to a fascination with science fiction and theatrics. But at this point in time, what really matters is what real people will wear and he doesn’t have anything for them.

Cacharel

If you were to prepare your wardrobe for a countryside romp or a picnic out in one of South of France’s beaches, it’d probably be saturated with Cacharel’s pieces for spring. There’s nothing jaw-dropping about them; just nice, sweet and, expectedly, flirty pieces. You have apron dresses, gay prints, shirred summer shifts and even a plaid pantsuit that becomes sugary paired with teal peep-toes and a canary yellow shirt. With all these sweet little takes, you won’t even have to bring dessert.

Christian Dior

A short, hot-pink stunner embellished all over with cowry shells is easily one of the most memorable pieces in Dior’s offering for spring next year. Flouncy, elaborate and just a little bit off-point, it shows how much John Galliano has changed this venerable house. Put it alongside a flowy gown with a long, pleated skirt and a La Dolce Vita vibe, layered pieces in blinding fluorescents, body suits, black leggings, zippered corsets and animal prints and you get a collection that harks back to the ‘80s but falls short with too-safe silhouettes.

Maison de Martin Margiela

Twenty years in the biz and what he’s got to show for it proves how influential this Belgian designer has been just by sticking to his eerie, surreal signature. Most of his upcoming collection rehashes elements from his two previous decades of design: body suits, boxy shapeless jackets, clinical lines and a streak of sleek androgyny that forecasts the kind of sexless fashion seen in sci-fi films.

It’s also all about the shoulders once again with sharp points sticking out of his suit jackets, thick pads squaring up sculpted tops and Edwardian puffy sleeves giving an eccentric feel to buttoned shifts.

In all these, Margiela’s wacked-out aesthetic continue to prod the senses as he literally interprets models as live mannequins, wrapping their heads and faces in nude stockings or topping his rounded tops (this one a novel introduction) and caped gowns with faces masked by Afro wigs. Like his past shows, you’re left dazed and thinking that he’s got more than what you bargained for.