FASHION Diaries
At the shows
The Paris (Fashion Week) Review: Belles of the Bals
It was high day for belles of the Bals: Balenciaga and Balmain, competing bold shoulder-to-shoulder for the minds and hearts of international editrixes… and Rihanna, who cast her vote of attendance for the latter. More importantly, as Suzy Menkes reported, Christophe Decarnin won the thumb war: tweets about Balmain outnumbered those about Balenciaga, 75 to 41. I’m loathe to be a lemming here, but maybe I agree (and no, I’m not just bitter about not getting the golden ticket to Ghesquière’s show. I still love). Sure, Decarnin is de trop, but the Mad Maxines storming down his runway are indeed a force to be reckoned with. And if we can ignore the bullet belts, a little grime and deconstruction does wonders for the sex-and-rock look. As for Balenciaga’s sharp veer out of form–sportif, haphazardly geometric, neon-sprayed?–who knows. Fashion hordes may decry it now, but just wait til the spring issues.
And today, another rejuvenated–well, resuscitated–French fashion legend enters the fray. Vionnet is alive again with Rodolfo Paglialunga (a former Prada man) at the helm. Just cause for a whole runway shebang, you’d think, but I spent the morning surveying the collection on mannequins in a marble-floored showroom. Perhaps that’s to blame for the tribute-show effect? After all, homage does not a house revival make. Shell-like silhouettes, a Madame Vionnet hallmark, were faultless. Colours were gemmy, gorgeous. The silks, exquisite. But before the new Vionnet can earn Balenciaga comparisons, I need to see it move! Energy! When I say this out loud, the PR tells me that the fussy brooches can be removed from the dresses, and that they can be worn backwards. Well, that’s a start…
Et puis: Dior circus in the Tuileries! And because I just had to stop for old postcards, a beret I’ll never actually wear, and a double-scoop of pistachio gelato, I’ll be late. Wish me luck, mes amis.
Balmain Spring Summer 2010 Video by Karen Kooper from Karen Kooper on Vimeo.
Topics: Balenciaga, Balmain, Christophe Decarnin, Fashion week, Nicolas Ghesquière, Paris, Paris Fashion Week Spring 2010, Spring 2010, Vionnet
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Having watched a few turnovers at Vionnet, I lit a candle for the the current fellow — hoping that they picked a winner but, alas, I miss Sophia Kokosalaki, the best so far. Madeleine Vionnet was a woman who understood her own body and organically felt that wearing clothes was fundamentally a marriage of the fabrics and the anatomy. She cut with rhythm and precision, following the direction of the muscles and kinetic energy of a physically and politically free woman. Her clothes let the person come through and could be geometric and feminine at the same time. In the current Vionnet season, all seems to miss these goals — color blocks that break up grace and the body, fabrics that drape but are not handled to deliver shaping, the whole too busy to be elegant (or worn by serious people), tenuously secured, unattractive proportions — all is broken Vionnet, seemingly done on the run. I am disappointed, again.