Author: Angelo Flaccavento

PARIS — If fashion has gotten oh so serious and conceptual of late, often as a cover up for weak design, the seventh day of Paris fashion week delivered some much needed playfulness.Jean-Paul GaultierThe Jean-Paul Gaultier show notes, penned by Gert Jonkers, summed it up perfectly: “The feeling of freedom to live, to work, to make love, to design and to get dressed requires the desire and determination to play. Always.” This was Duran Lantink’s sophomore outing for the house built by the one and only enfant terrible of fashion, and unlike in his debut collection, Lantink’s determination to play…

PARIS and MILAN — The scene at the Ann Demeulemeester show on Saturday evening, staged at the gothic Réfectoire des Cordeliers — a venue die-hard Demeulemeester acolytes have long associated with Ann herself — was appropriately nocturnal. Out of the pitch black, indie act Beguiling Junior kicked off the outing with a short performance, followed by a parade of models that included Billy Idol, as the grungy community that creative director Stefano Gallici has assembled (Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin among them) looked on.It all drove home how Gallici’s tribe differs from Demeulemeester’s: wilder and perhaps a little oblivious to…

PARIS and MILAN — The scene at the Ann Demeulemeester show on Saturday evening, staged at the gothic Réfectoire des Cordeliers — a venue die-hard Demeulemeester acolytes have long associated with Ann herself — was appropriately nocturnal. Out of the pitch black, indie act Beguiling Junior kicked off the outing with a short performance, followed by a parade of models that included Billy Idol, as the grungy community that creative director Stefano Gallici has assembled (Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin among them) looked on.It all drove home how Gallici’s tribe differs from Demeulemeester’s: wilder and perhaps a little oblivious to…

PARIS — Strategy or intuition? Taken as a whole, day six of Paris fashion week offered a sort of dual between two approaches to fashion and styling.CelineMichael Rider used the words “jam session” to describe his latest show for Celine, held in a woodchip-floored tent in the second courtyard of the Institut de France, a choice which resonated with his bookish sensibility. But he may as well have been talking about his wider approach to the house.His Celine is indeed a jam session: a fluid come together of different worlds and pieces in an endless work in progress that can…

PARIS — The fifth day of Paris fashion week featured recently installed designers working to assert fresh identities (some more successfully than others) at the brands they helm and unbeatable masters that kept being themselves.GivenchyNow in her third season at Givenchy, Sarah Burton has really found her stride: while maintaining her signature sense of infinite variety, she has made the house her own, free from the urge to observe a strict code as was the case at McQueen. Today’s outing showed off the level of mastery of draping and construction befitting a couture house like Givenchy, and yet she steered…

PARIS — Formulas — blindly followed, stretched or bravely broken — were in the spotlight on the fourth day of Paris Fashion Week.ChloéIn the two years since Chemena Kamali joined Chloé, a timely return to boho-chic has helped point the brand in the right direction: reviving the “Chloé girl” as envisioned by the likes of Phoebe Philo and Clare Waight Keller. It’s been a smart move. Clients were eager for that product, the moment was ripe for a comeback and even with luxury sales in a slump the brand has been gaining traction.What was meant to be a jumping off…

PARIS — The busiest day of Paris fashion week featured a hello at Balmain, a goodbye at Alaïa and variations on signature visions at Courrèges, The Row, Dries Van Noten and Tom Ford.Dries Van NotenAt Dries Van Noten, Julian Klausner engaged on a detour around the most exotic and ineffable of topics: the building of identity at the end of youth, right before adulthood sets in and things solidify. He did so in a very Dries kind of way, taking things from here and there, mixing school uniforms, embellishment, mannish pieces, cozy knits and whiffs of other cultures, plus some…

PARIS — After a mostly commercial Milan, fashion week in the French capital opened with a bang à la Parisienne: Ideas! Concepts! Experimentation!At Hodakova, the dimly lit show ended with a trio of models wearing chairs. Another was decked out in an artfully placed carpet. If it recalls Hussein Chalayan that’s because designer Ellen Hodakova is a Chalayan enthusiast. That was the climax, however. The core of the collection was about backless tailoring: a rumination on the façade one presents to the world — often in violent contrast with the real self that hides behind it. It made for an…

MILAN — Fashion week here ended on Sunday morning with Giorgio Armani: It’s been the same for several years now, and yet nothing is the same since the inimitable Giorgio left us. Silvana Armani has worked alongside her uncle for over 40 years, so her first ready-to-wear show as the womenswear creative director offered continuity, albeit with the lighter, more pragmatic, a fuss-free touch offered by a woman dressing women with a decidedly Milanese brand of effortlessness. What was immediately apparent was how matte it all looked, the otherworldly but artificial sheen that Mr. Armani so fervently pushed of late…

MILAN — Brand identity, at times in flux and at others simply reaffirmed, was not just a recurring theme but a veritable obsession for this round of Milanese shows. Louise Trotter’s sophomore outing at Bottega Veneta boldly reaffirmed the house’ identity as the temple of experimental craft: the true high-luxury icing on Kering’s cake. On display was a smorgasbord of textures and workmanship, an endless interplay of the natural and the man-made.If the pieces were in fact very light — as Trotter insisted backstage — the effect was at times visually burdened, with some of the models drowning in matter.…