SPECIAL EDITION : FASHION SHOW WEDDING DRESS IN PARIS 2012

Royal Wedding Dresses 2012 Collection of Alexander McQueen  :

Alexander McQueen fall 2011 gowns looked apt for Royal Wedding and could convince Princess-to-be Kate Middleton to go for Sarah Burton’s design for her April wedding like a gown with a body collaged from broken china, that erupted into a froth of organza was stunning.
Sarah Burton fall 2011 Alexander McQueen show opened with Freja Beha Erichsen in white tweed skirt suit with fur accents and zips which opened pleats around the skirt. She looked like a rare white bird in her white coat with white fur.
Then came slew of models flaunting designs that had a blurry-edged softness, which came from the fur that lined hems, cuffs, and shoulder seams.
Color palette was mostly based on black, white and some grays with a flash of lavender and baby blue, here and there.
Sarah Burton’s couture-level tailoring was prominent in fitted wool jackets trimmed in fur, tiny zippers running vertically around a skirt hem, spray-on leather leggings beneath skirts and dresses with bodices crafted entirely from mosaics of broken bone china plates.
Fur was prominent in dropt-waist halterneck dress and the hood of a sleeveless sheath. Models grabbed attention in their colorless faces and small, metal-covered heads and Lace-up platform booties.
 Rounding up the show were Alexander McQueen Fall 2011 evening gowns that came in white looking as pure as snow and in black flaunting sexier side.On the whole, Alexander McQueen Fall 2011 runway show was all about intricate tailoring and dreamy dresses and gown, apt for royal wedding.

Photos in Alexander McQueen Royal Wedding Dresses Collection 2011-2012:

 

 

Meanwhile, Pronovias 2012 Advance Collection :

 

It’s beautiful. We picked some of our favorite wedding dresses from the Costura and Fashion collections. Above, Pomelo, romantic gown with point d’esprit skirt and beautiful wide lace staps. Below, Pluma fitted strapless gown with voluminous skirt that attaches at the back.

The Costura bridal collection is, “Painstakingly handcrafted and designed with the same innovative energy as the world’s best fashion shows. Styles with a contemporary spirit and details worthy of haute couture divas lace appliqué, hand embroidery and fitted bodices with flowing trains.”, below, Pergola.

Gorgeous strapless mermaid gown with lace tulle overlay, Pompeya.

Petunia has a similar style to Pompeya but it comes with beautiful lace straps.

Pinal featuring stunning embroidered accent at the bodice.

More wedding dresses after the jump.

Peral with voluminous skirt, shown with illusion top.

Back view of Pomelo (first picture). It’s so pretty!

The next few wedding dresses are from the Fashion collection.

“For setting trends softly and subtly, which glow from within, we use soft, refined fabrics like Sofia gauze and pleated Paris organza. Today’s woman was the inspiration for these gowns with their pure, discreet lines, fitted at the waist or hips by delicate drapes and ruffles.”, below, Pascua elongated draped bodice gown.

Patty, elegant fit and flare lace wedding dress with straps.

Paris one-shoulder wedding gown.

Closeup of Palace wedding dress featuring pretty lace top with split neckline.

This dress is so cute !

So, many womens want to be a queen in her married. They use wedding dress which make them look so beautiful and nice. They want their married can be remembered forever and ever.

And I hope, oneday I can use that wedding dress too. :)

PARIS FASHION WEEK SPRING 2012

This was Christophe Lamaire's second show for Hermès. Note the kaftan dress and headscarf : the Hermès woman knows a thing or two about luxe travelling.

Silk scarf prints, neat leather collars and, of course, a leather saddle bag. Three nods to the ingredients that keep the Hermès brand (bank) rolling.

Bill Gaytten's collection for the Christian Dior label kept the troubled house ticking over with undeniably pretty but frankly 'meh' dresses like this one.

  

The Dior show included house classics like this bar jacket. The message was about the label's heritage not its recent Galliano controversy.

  

Dior's eveningwear was for the most part beautifully crafted. But this one is unlikely to make it to the red carpet for obvious reasons.

  

What do you get when you mix exotic lapels, razor-sharp tailoring, a shark's tooth pendant and the best legs in the universe? Gisele Bundchen modelling for Givenchy.

Can you spot designer Riccardo Tisci's self-professed mermaid influence here? Naturellement the Givenchy mermaid is fierce.

  

Sharp tailoring modelled by Natalia Vodianova at the Givenchy show. Sleeveless jackets have life in them yet.

  

Bill Gaytten's post-Galliano Galliano show was 'a literal re-hash of Galliano looks' according to Jess Cartner-Morley.

  

Look at the power in this Lanvin look. Strong shoulders and vacuum packed pencil skirts were highlights in a show that featured less dresses and more sporty separates than is usual for designer Alber Elbaz.

  

Witness the bandage bandeau top at Roland Mouret. Seems as though a few designers have got us thinking about ab crunches before next spring with their preference bandeau tops in 2012.

  

The Roland Mouret show have a classy 1940's vibe about it. This tulip dress was one of the highlights of a beautiful and wearable collection.

  

The Comme des Garcons featured tons of white with a bridal slant. These floral sheath tubes made us think of out of work actors dressed as hotdogs to promote sandwich shops. Comme does a nice line in experimental oddness.

  

Comme des Garcons showed forensic lab boots, visible crinolines and expanding foam insulation ruffles. All par for the course at this experimental Japanese label.

  

Here comes the bride at Comme des Garcons.

  

The transparent trend cropped up at Maison Martin Margiela's catwalk.

  

Minus the plastic bags, the carpet inspired looks from this Maison Martin Margiela collection were decidedly wearable.

  

Feather headdresses on the catwalk at the Junya Watanabe show.

  

Lace, embroidery and bolero jackets were the major themes at the Junya Watanabe show even if the feather hats were the most scene-stealing.

  

Yohji Yamamoto does Ascot? Surely not. Really nice dress. 

PARIS FASHION WEEK WINTER 2012

MIRRORED visors once again blocked out the faces of the Alexander McQueen models this evening – standardly otherworldly, this season they were bombshell blonde cyborgs but, in spite of the styling that always seems dramatic enough to distract us from them, the clothes were nothing short of beautiful – in terms of idea, construction and detail. It was Sarah Burton being breathtaking again.

“I don’t think she could do any wrong,” said Vogue’s Fran Burns afterwards. “Her sense of femininity and beauty, and of craftsmanship is mind blowing. Plus it was an army of blondes so a big thumbs up from me.”
It opened with a flurry of winter whites – skater skirts gathered in vast swathes around the thighs below fitted jackets that flowered to wide peplums under huge shawls. Heel-less ankle boots or Mary Janes worn over woolly socks added to the futuristic, always slightly spooky element, before stunning silk and leather dresses featuring embellishments of unfurling petals in baby pink or white allowed the colour to slowly bleed to centre stage.

Everything was belted tight to the waist – white on black doily printed coats with stiff collars and zips up the back, fur coats smothered in pompoms that then expanded to huge ostrich feather skirts and coats - which in turn grew into frothy marabou or tulle jellyfish dresses that seemed to breathe of their own accord.

In bright orange and fuchsia, with matching shoes, they were a pure celebration of colour and form, while one in cream had a bouncing gathered hem at the calf, another at the knee and a final higher one at each cuff that combined at the back as a cape.

They were fountains, or live fashion corals – mesmerising to watch. The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations took over the speakers and Burton ran out smiling to take a bow, turning back to reveal a pair of orange-handled scissors in her back pocket. Truly a genius of fashion ideas.

Some photos :

 

In other hand, MIU MIU took the Edwardian silhouette introduced by Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton this morning - with frock coat shapes over cropped tailored trousers - and swirled in Seventies colour and print, all piled up over glam rock platforms in silver and mahogany and topped with glittering rainbow eye embellishments and hair that was slicked back and curled into looped sideburns - all accompanied by Björk being Violently Happy. It could really only happen at Miu Miu.

Mannish suits in pale blue, green, mustard or plum came over ruffle-fronted shirts featuring fine mosaic prints that later emerged to take over the suits, in prints of pink and blue, raspberry and turquoise, orange and brown, pink and green or purple and tan - and then in blocks of turquoise and black. A modern psychedelica we can't wait to get our hands on.

Cape-shouldered tailored jackets were teamed with mismatching A-line mini skirts before brown suede coats with pointed collars called to mind the coats we berated our fathers for still owning when we were teenagers.

There were few dresses to speak of, but those that did appear were mini tunics embellished with mirrors in front and tailored in suede behind: young, sassy and brilliant for a place in the limelight.

Some photos :

 

 

 

 

PARIS FASHION WEEK SUMMER 2012

The intense heat of Paris's non-air-conditioned venues combined with a glorious Indian summer meant that for once, the fashion witches (or fair and even-handed critics as we prefer to think of ourselves) got to see the summer collections in conditions similar to those they are intended to be worn in.

This fair and even-handed critic, for instance, having initially dismissed the new drop-waisted dress as a fast-track to hip, thigh and bottom disaster, began to revise her opinion. What could be more soothing and cooling on a humid day than a body-skimming, waist by-passing dress in silk or gauzey cotton?

They have to be artfully cut, of course. Some were. Others were borderline. And the ones with pleats bunching over the hips were insanity.

Refreshing too, were all the floaty, fluid, kilty skirts, designed to be worn with hip-length tunic tops - another way to wear a drop-waist silhouette, but this time one that nods to the Sixties rather than the Twenties.

The heat had other ramifications. It made the traditional fashion timescale - reviewing clothes six months before they reach the stores - seem even more archaic than it already does. Some labels are finally getting to grips with the madness. Uniqueness, a new venture between former Gucci and Valentino designer Alessandra Fachinetti, and Pinko, a high street Italian chain, put its collection online an hour after the show finished in Paris. ETA: 48 hours.

The organisers of the world's four major fashion shows are, the Telegraph discovered yesterday, dealing with the new order in their own way. It transpires that back in the summer, the Italians secretly decided that in future, they want to show first, not third, even if that means clashing with London and New York's Fashion Weeks, which it does. If they go ahead they'll be reneging on an agreement that has existed for the past 20 years. Cue hand-wringing from the Brits, head-nodding from the French and threatened cavalry charging from the Americans. Nice to see everyone playing to national stereotype.

But back to what really counts: fashion editors' wardrobes. So busy had they been packing their winter statements in tissue paper that many had neglected to look at the weather forecast. Big problem. Some of these front-rowers need never-before-seen outfits every day. Forget Hollywood celebrities (and most of the houses appeared to). Few were invited to the shows and fewer labels appeared interested in red carpet dresses. The new evening wear is a knee-length embellished skirt, or a trouser suit.

Perhaps the biggest celebrity to muscle in on Paris Fashion Week was Kanye West, with his own fashion show. After the reviews came out, he probably wished he hadn't. At least it made you appreciate the real designers, even if they're currently beset by rumours. Marc Jacobs to go to Dior? Pilati to Armani? George Osborne to YSL (I could just make these up and I'd still start an internet frenzy).

But back to the hard news. By day 12, the need for fresh supplies of summer clothes had become so pressing that Net-a-Porter's founder Natalie Massanet, savvy marketeer that she is, arranged for one of the company's distinctive black vans to drive over from London with emergency orders.

Our top ten shows from Paris :

Phoebe Philo's collection had an almost forensic severity the trench jackets were sliced off mid-thigh and worn over mid-calf white skirts. That's a difficult silhouette for the average woman, but Philo jacks her up onto chunky platforms and cinches in her waist with a belt as wide as the Thames. "The collection was about playing with proportions," said Philo. The Céline woman will stand tall as an arum lily on super-size platforms in pristine white, letting her statement shapes do the talking.

Once, Isabel Marant was adored for making fashion accessible and sexy. So what was she trying to tell us here? That you can look young and sexy in trackie bottoms, a man's checked shirt and a hoodie? Er, we know that. Abercrombie, via their Bruce Weber ads, have been banging that drum for years. It wasn't all sloppy however. There was a lot of craft in this collection: those skinny patchwork jeans in washed-out raspberry will be a big hit next spring, and endlessly copied.

We all know that the pencil skirt is synonymous with that prim but promising secretary who features in every heterosexual's Rolodex of stock fantasies, but Lanvin's were deliberately rucked-up - as if they came with rough and ready sexual encounters already built in. There may not have been a lot of flesh on display - until we got to those crinkle pleated, fit-and-flare sheer dresses and the tuxedo pants with their peekaboo slashed white stripes -but there was plenty of attitude. Fabulously well-behaved clothes with a dark and dirty under-belly.

As well as absolutely the sharpest pencil skirts anywhere this season (in red, blue and bl`ck) Mouret presented a collection of summery, holiday-ready slouchy trousers, baggy tailored shorts, and wide-shouldered coats and dresses (the same shoulder-shape Mouret favours in his menswear collection) gorgeous enough to give Bacall a fit of the vapours. There were dresses in a tweedy black and white material and a circle print - sometimes decorated with Picasso-ish eyes - that flared behind the knee and frilled at the shoulder. He achieved the requisite Mouret flesh-flash quota via some ribboned lattice sections in some of the skirts and dresses, and some south-of-the-bosom panels. It was great stuff.

The supermodel elite, used to being stared at on catwalks, turned the tables at Hermès and wandered around, scrutinising the audience. A white period of oversized, near-harem trousers and jackets, tunic dresses and culottes was followed by two rust-coloured looks, then this stunning orange dress with leather detail. On they came - the green slouchy suit, the caramel leather shorts, the print dress with robots wearing American Indian headdresses, often accessorised with dinky saddlebags.

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This colour virus is spreading. Even Riccardo Tisci ventured out of his dark Gothic dungeon. If Philo is digging purity, Tisci is mining impurity. Swoops were the order of the day: curved hems, horizontal folds that wrapped the body. Dresses with a scrim of lace over the top, stretch pencil skirts with patent trim, three-piece trousersuits (buttoned-up shirt, snug jacket and trousers), sleeveless jacket-come waistcoats with peplums that swooped into a fishtail at the back.

Karl Lagerfeld said last year that he would like to see Haider Ackermann succeed him at Chanel. With this collection, the Colombian-born, Belgian-trained Ackermann suggested he would be an inspired choice. Ackermann took the trouser suit, hammered it out of raw silks and Indian gold-stamped sari fabric, then steeped it in some of the loveliest colours seen so far - and it has been a season of gorgeous colours. By fixing so single-mindedly on the slouchy elegance of the trouser suit, rather as Romeo Gigli did 20 years ago, Ackermann has unilaterally declared the frou-frou cocktail dress a dinosaur. And he made poetry out of colour.

Under Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli the house of Valentino is striking a perfect balance between its own history and reinvention. By layering ultra-light materials like chiffon and lace they create an ultra-feminine interplay, for example by placing the lightest possible polka dots on a nude chiffon underskirt. The longer white decorated dresses were reminiscent of the frock worn by Waterhouse's Ophelia. Yet just as their dresses were never coarse, these were never overwrought or corny.

We've seen a lot of skirt suits and cropped jackets this past month, but Stefano Pilati gave his a distinctive YSL signature. Those high-drama ruffles on the hems of his split, just-above-the-knee skirts and cocoon-backed jackets delivered interesting, high class detailing to what are - for the YSL customer - relatively straightforward, uncomplicated clothes. The suits came with high-necked, uptight chic silk blouses, showing off Pilati's credentials as a Saint Laurent-worthy colourist.

The Grand Palais is the perfect setting for a Chanel show its bombastic imperialism is utterly in sync with Karl Lagerfeld's. While other houses retrench, regroup, re-hab, Chanel's extravagance seems strangely reassuring. Bring on those 70 models in their whisper-light, silk gazar jewelled dresses and airy, loosely woven tweed as they march around giant shells and fish to Wagner's Valkyrie. The theme was aquatic and Lagerfeld didn't spare the (sea) horses. 

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