Related News
Paris couture carnival
February 21, 2010, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A CIRCUS vibe permeated the Givenchy show during the Paris spring-summer 2010 haute couture displays.
But Givenchy's was the kind of circus where the tightrope walkers perform without a rope and the lion tamer regularly gets eaten.
Designer Riccardo Tisci, a connoisseur of the dark side, sent out a sumptuous collection of beaded pantsuits and sheer organza dresses that fairly seethed with foreboding of bad things to come.
Chanel was a far sunnier place. Massive columns fitted with fluorescent bulbs glowed in a rainbow of pastel shades that matched the sweet pinks, peaches, mint greens and baby blues of the all-pastel and silver collection.
There was but a single black-and-white look in the whole show, and uber-designer Karl Lagerfeld described steering clear of the storied label's hallmark color combination as "a challenge."
French designer Stephane Rolland delivered a jaw-dropping collection of mini dresses spattered with gleaming lacquer.
And Worth, a weighty name in the rarefied haute couture world with garments that cost as much as a car -- made a comeback -- while Soda's work exhibited a hard-rock edge.
Chanel was basking in a luminous pastel glow. Models in buttery yellow culotte suits, fancy plissed tank dresses in baby blue silk and frothy pink gowns minced down the catwalk on boots with silver rococo heels and pearl-studded soles.
Lagerfeld called working without black a "challenge" but said the idea for the color-soaked show came in "electronic flashes I get in my head."
"I saw it in a dream and I made the sketches ... at five o'clock in the morning," he said.
Some of the looks had a dreamlike quality. An off-the-shoulder bubble dress awash in tiny silk ruffles evoked sea foam, or a cloud.
The wedding dress -- which traditionally closes haute couture displays -- had silver sequin-covered sleeves and a fluffy train in marshmallow pink.
Little blobs of silver, like liquid mercury, dotted the seams of the peaked-shouldered jackets, which were paired with high-waisted culottes.
Never one to neglect his accessories, Lagerfeld decked the models out in fingerless gloves like the ones he often sports.
And he fastened fancy bows into their massive winged bouffants.
The Beirut native Soda once worked under Elie Saab, and it's easy to see the imprint Hollywood's favorite Lebanese designer left on his work. Like Saab, Soda also turns out ravishing red-carpet-ready gowns, heavy with fancy beadwork.
But his spring-summer collection, had a hard, rock-princess edge.
Some of the looks, with peaked shoulders and fringes of gold chains and razor-shaped metal appliques, felt like what Balmain would do if the Paris-based label ever took hemlines down below the upper thigh.
Rolland has wowed critics with sculptural gowns that bulge with bustles and capes and mini dresses embellished with painstaking geometric mosaics since launching his label in 2007.
This season, he took the shards of plexiglass he uses for the mosaics and flipped them 90 degrees, so they stuck up from the fabric's surface in stiff ridges.
Aligned one beside another, they formed astonishing volumes, and looked like stiff Elizabethan lace collars. Ultra-glossy splotches dripped from the necklines of asymmetrical jumpsuits and a scarlet stain soaked up from the hem of a razor-cut skirt suit in ecru silk.
The emerging French designer Tibusch shot into orbit with a Space Age collection of Saturnian ringed leotards, asymmetrical gowns with towering shoulders and cocktail dresses that looked like the uniforms of space stewardesses.
And as if the boldly imaginative collection was lacking in strangeness, Tibusch upped the weirdness factor by embroidering on chips of burned wood and dead flowers and covering a leotard with mini chocolate bars.
If Lady Gaga ends up ordering that one, someone really must warn her not to work up a sweat in it.
Looks that deserved a spot on the center ring in Tisci's dangerous big top were the column skirt covered in minute emerald beads and a sheer silk top and a pantsuit and cropped jacket in electric blue beads that looked made for the world's chicest lion tamer.
The 22-item show had plenty of the kinds of organza and sequin concoctions that in the hands of most other designers would have come off as fluffy or, at best, pretty.
But Tisci is able to imbue even the daintiest and sweetest of looks with a subversive edge that makes you take one look at the ingenue sporting his powder pink silk cocktail number and feel the need to check whether she's wielding a knife behind her back.
But Givenchy's was the kind of circus where the tightrope walkers perform without a rope and the lion tamer regularly gets eaten.
Designer Riccardo Tisci, a connoisseur of the dark side, sent out a sumptuous collection of beaded pantsuits and sheer organza dresses that fairly seethed with foreboding of bad things to come.
Chanel was a far sunnier place. Massive columns fitted with fluorescent bulbs glowed in a rainbow of pastel shades that matched the sweet pinks, peaches, mint greens and baby blues of the all-pastel and silver collection.
There was but a single black-and-white look in the whole show, and uber-designer Karl Lagerfeld described steering clear of the storied label's hallmark color combination as "a challenge."
French designer Stephane Rolland delivered a jaw-dropping collection of mini dresses spattered with gleaming lacquer.
And Worth, a weighty name in the rarefied haute couture world with garments that cost as much as a car -- made a comeback -- while Soda's work exhibited a hard-rock edge.
Chanel was basking in a luminous pastel glow. Models in buttery yellow culotte suits, fancy plissed tank dresses in baby blue silk and frothy pink gowns minced down the catwalk on boots with silver rococo heels and pearl-studded soles.
Lagerfeld called working without black a "challenge" but said the idea for the color-soaked show came in "electronic flashes I get in my head."
"I saw it in a dream and I made the sketches ... at five o'clock in the morning," he said.
Some of the looks had a dreamlike quality. An off-the-shoulder bubble dress awash in tiny silk ruffles evoked sea foam, or a cloud.
The wedding dress -- which traditionally closes haute couture displays -- had silver sequin-covered sleeves and a fluffy train in marshmallow pink.
Little blobs of silver, like liquid mercury, dotted the seams of the peaked-shouldered jackets, which were paired with high-waisted culottes.
Never one to neglect his accessories, Lagerfeld decked the models out in fingerless gloves like the ones he often sports.
And he fastened fancy bows into their massive winged bouffants.
The Beirut native Soda once worked under Elie Saab, and it's easy to see the imprint Hollywood's favorite Lebanese designer left on his work. Like Saab, Soda also turns out ravishing red-carpet-ready gowns, heavy with fancy beadwork.
But his spring-summer collection, had a hard, rock-princess edge.
Some of the looks, with peaked shoulders and fringes of gold chains and razor-shaped metal appliques, felt like what Balmain would do if the Paris-based label ever took hemlines down below the upper thigh.
Rolland has wowed critics with sculptural gowns that bulge with bustles and capes and mini dresses embellished with painstaking geometric mosaics since launching his label in 2007.
This season, he took the shards of plexiglass he uses for the mosaics and flipped them 90 degrees, so they stuck up from the fabric's surface in stiff ridges.
Aligned one beside another, they formed astonishing volumes, and looked like stiff Elizabethan lace collars. Ultra-glossy splotches dripped from the necklines of asymmetrical jumpsuits and a scarlet stain soaked up from the hem of a razor-cut skirt suit in ecru silk.
The emerging French designer Tibusch shot into orbit with a Space Age collection of Saturnian ringed leotards, asymmetrical gowns with towering shoulders and cocktail dresses that looked like the uniforms of space stewardesses.
And as if the boldly imaginative collection was lacking in strangeness, Tibusch upped the weirdness factor by embroidering on chips of burned wood and dead flowers and covering a leotard with mini chocolate bars.
If Lady Gaga ends up ordering that one, someone really must warn her not to work up a sweat in it.
Looks that deserved a spot on the center ring in Tisci's dangerous big top were the column skirt covered in minute emerald beads and a sheer silk top and a pantsuit and cropped jacket in electric blue beads that looked made for the world's chicest lion tamer.
The 22-item show had plenty of the kinds of organza and sequin concoctions that in the hands of most other designers would have come off as fluffy or, at best, pretty.
But Tisci is able to imbue even the daintiest and sweetest of looks with a subversive edge that makes you take one look at the ingenue sporting his powder pink silk cocktail number and feel the need to check whether she's wielding a knife behind her back.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
