Author: Tim Blanks
PARIS — The Givenchy invitation arrived with a knotted black leather kerchief, a highly suggestive item which was complemented by the set of the show, a shadowy film noir hall of mirrors, and a first look which presented a woman in a dark suit and white shirt, dressed for Raymond Chandler’s mean streets. So far, so noir. Then came the second look, a simple black velvet sheath slashed high on the thigh, the model sporting what looked like a wimple, except that it was actually hatter Stephen Jones’s suggestion of a holidaymaker’s ordinary cotton T-shirt worn on the head to keep the…
What do I want to say with my clothes? What do I want to say when I do shows? How do I do it gracefully?The questions Rick Owens asked himself after his show on Thursday night have been resonating throughout fashion since the pandemic at least. They can be distilled into one deadly word: relevance. And now here’s another war to underscore the challenges even more brutally. Rick felt he’d said everything he needed to say about oppression and fascism in his men’s show in January. This new presentation was more about “behaviour during wartime.” He had in mind one…
PARIS — Wednesday night in Paris was a clash of the new titans. Haider Ackermann had his third show for Tom Ford, Pieter Mulier had his last for Alaïa. Ackermann left his audience momentarily stunned after a tightly choreographed presentation that was all but an art piece performed in a blisteringly white set. Mulier had his crowd on its feet stomping, cheering in a long goodbye for the designer who is moving to Versace after five years during which he artfully mastered one of the most challenging legacies in the industry. Ackermann has that same challenge, but he had the edge…
Jonathan Anderson has lately been showing his Dior collections in a giant tent in the Tuileries, the ornamental gardens in the heart of Paris that were once the playground of kings. But he has tired of tents. For his new presentation, he fancied something more open, more engaged with the reality of Paris, more reflective of his warmer feelings for the city. So Dior filled the massive Grand Bassin Octogonal with water, floated it with artificial water lilies (Monet’s “originals” being mere feet away in the Orangerie gallery) and bridged it so that Anderson’s models could parade through a spectacularly sunny spring…
MILAN — Demna’s first show for Gucci opened with a little white dress, a seamless silk tube woven like a stocking. He thought of it as a blank slate, a statement about body-consciousness from which followed every other second-skin piece of clothing that made its way down the runway. It was a celebration of the body which came from a designer who has finally learned to love his own after a lifetime of despising the way he looked. It was also an experiment, one that has confounded, even inflamed, an audience who were maybe expecting an answer to the question…