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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PARIS FASHION WEEK AUTUMN 2012

First class

As the station clock struck ten, the Louis Vuitton Express, steam billowing, pulled in to the heart of the Louvre, to the delight of the assembled fashion crowd. Each of the 47 models then alighted the train carriage, followed by their own porter carrying their extensive Vuitton luggage. This was a faultless Marc Jacobs for Vuitton performance; the elaborate set, the storytelling (the best show notes of the season conjured up a mood of a bygone age of luxury travel and an air of tangible anticipation that something magical was about to unfold) and, lest we forget, clothes, which were all topped by a squat, squashed, over-sized hat. The silhouette was stiff and structured and often heavily embellished in gems and richly coloured embroidery, all fastenings were in the style of jewelled brooches. First Class in every sense.

Leather

Leather is proving to be THE perennial trend. Congratulations if you already invested, you can feel smug in the knowledge you are still on-trend for winter 2012. Seen in many Paris collections it was most notable in an equestrian-inspired trio of shows; Hèrmes, Loewe and Givenchy. It was Argentine Gauchos for Christophe Lemaire at Hèrmes, the Royal Baroque riding schools of the South of Spain at Loewe and centaurs for Riccardo Tisci, whose footwear looked like a hybrid of riding boots and hooves. The equine theme continued here with huge disc earrings that riffed on horses' blinkers.

Capes

It's all about the cape. Not the superhero style or a swirling Sherlock Holmes cloak, we are talking arms through slits or bell sleeves. The freedom to scratch one's nose and hail a cab with ease. At Yohji Yamamoto the cape was in knitted hot pink, at YSL there was a modern tuxedo jacket feel, while Chloe created a hybrid parka-cape.

Deconstruction/reconstruction

We love a show note allowing the fashion crowd a brief glimpse inside a designer's mind. At Maison Martin Margiela the inspiration was “gestures", "over the shoulder", "hands in pockets" and "stand up collar" inspiring the shape and construction of each piece. Coats were re-proportioned and rose from the shoulder, there were exaggerated pull-up collars, while double sleeves created capes. Sleeves were sewn into pockets, and knitwear gave the illusion of movement with molded bent elbows. At Junya Watanabe the collection was based on form, or rather changing form, a trench coat became a funnel-neck cape; cuffed pants were opened out into the trailing tails of a pinstriped jacket. The running theme was the deconstruction of masculine tailoring. We suggest that with a little DIY you can take a new view on an old suit at the back of your wardrobe.

Beauty queens
It was beauty looks a-go-go in Paris. Thanks to Chanel eyebrows are the thing for AW12, sparkling, out-of-this-world brows that is. On planet Chanel they are made from crystals, glitter and beads - a browjazzle as one front-row fashion editor quipped on Twitter. At Miu Miu, Pat McGarth went for a psychedelic seventies meets Summer of Love mirror disc look, worn with faux side-burns. We might give those a miss. Our favourite revival look of the week- lashings of eighties blue mascara at Stella McCartney. This is one trend to try at home now.

Purple reign
Violet, mauve, amethyst, heliotrope, aubergine, plum. Whatever you call it, purple is the colour to be sporting for winter. Endorsed by Chanel, Christian Dior and Balenciaga, need we say more ?

 Volume
This season fashion has risen to a grand new scale – literally. Two of the most eye-dazzling moments from Paris came as models were dwarfed by the sheer volume of the creations they wore. There wasn't a figure hugging, body-conscious garment in sight and the fashion crowd cheered and applauded. Rei Kawakubo at Comme Des Garcons had fun with felted dresses that had a paper doll-like feel, minus the tabs. On a softer note, Sarah Burton for McQueen carried on the inspiration of the McQ show, the forest floor and fungi. Dresses practically stood on their own, and looked as though they had unfurled and opened under the heat of the fibre optic lights. Thousands of layers of organza gently swayed with the tiniest movement.

Opulent decoration
There was a modern take on old classics in Paris. At Balmain Olivier Rousteing took inspiration from Fabergé eggs by using tiny pearls and crystal embroidery. For the Carven label Guillaume Henry took Hieronymus Bosch's 'Garden of Earthly Delights' as his chosen print, sending models down the runway in playful mid-thigh dresses with cheeky key-hole slits on the bodices. Print maestro Dries Van Noten, used the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum to unveil Japanese, Chinese, and Korean iconography printed and cleverly cut into panels on coats, trousers and jackets.

Philo on fire
This season Phoebe Philo was on form. Sculptural and very three-dimensional form, to be precise. She worked with new proportions: full-rounded sleeves on army jackets; peplums encompassing the hips; and wide, cinched-in belts. The overall Céline silhouette was ultra modern without a print in sight. Top of our wish-list for next season are the platform ankle-strap pumps.

'I'll have a P please, Bob'

In summary, next season trends are; print, paisley, pyjama pants, pearls, peplums, pastels, patchwork and pleats. Stella McCartney has backed paisley PJs. New designer at Chloe, Claire Waight Keller, ran with pleats on dresses, shirts and skirts. Over at Chanel, King Karl*dazzled us all with a collection that paid homage to that most iconic of Chanel looks - the string of pearls. Choosing an underwater theme, the show saw Florence Welch unveiled as the 'pearl' in a giant Venus oyster shell.

One to watch

When we heard that ex-creative director at Sonia Rykiel, Gabrielle Gress (who also spent eight years at Martine Sitbon, another fashion desk favourite), had produced her own collection we made a beeline for her Paris studio. We were greeted with dreamy dresses made up of transparent layers, hinting at the form underneath but never revealing it. A favourite piece was a soft, bouclé washed sweatshirt (pictured), teamed with a fluid skirt. These are clothes for dancing barefoot on the beach in.

The Chanel show at Grand Palais

 

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PARIS FASHION WEEK SPRING 2012

Ciggie notwithstanding, that old Moss Magic did its work. Vuitton have sold 2000 pairs of those boots to date - at £1,530 a pair.

Can she do the same for lace collars and vanilla tulle? For that's what she wore on the Vuitton catwalk this time. There was no cigarette either - just a carousel of 48 horses, one for every model, each of whom looked adorable, in their sugared almond coloured princess dresses and twinkly skirt suits.

If you like sweetness and light, this was a heavenly constellation of prettiness. There would have been more of it, but Vuitton had already booked the biggest carousel in Paris, so Jacobs had to edit the collection down to 48 outfits.

A few years ago, no model, not even Moss, would have had the power to sell 2,000 of anything that Jacobs put on a catwalk. That's because for all the hullabaloo surrounding Vuitton's ready-to-wear shows, clothes were but a micro-dot amid all the luggage and wallets that generate Vuitton's multi-billion Euro annual turnover. Most of what Jacobs designed never even got produced. That major source of discontentment is now behind him. "We've really got it together," he says. "Most of what you see in the show makes it to our key stores".

That should please fans - as much as it distresses their fund managers. Vuitton's ready-to-wear is up there with the costliest. But the craftsmanship is extraordinary. Many of the drop yoked skirts and princess-line dresses in yesterday's show came with top layers of tulle or a meadow's worth of sparkling appliquéd rosettes.

"The workmanship on our new basket weave bags is insane," said Jacobs. "It took six hours just to line up the*skins on one coat".

Don't ask him prices. "I never know. I just make it to the best of our ability. I'm so proud of the teams we've got here. When I arrived at Vuitton 14 years ago there was no ready-to-wear studio. We built it from scratch. I couldn't do any of this without them".
Aha! We were under strict instructions from the Vuitton press officers not to mention Christian Dior to Jacobs. Rumours about him taking over from John Galliano have reached a point of delirium during the past month. Team Vuitton fervently hopes they won't lose their ringmaster. Jacobs refuses to discuss it, although he conceded that his past few shows had become increasingly spectacular - so he'd rise to Dior's tradition of extravaganzas. But if he does transfer (and his boss, Bernard Arnault, who also owns Dior, is said to be keen) he seems to be sending out signals that he'll be doing it on his terms - and possibly keeping his team.

View the Balmain spring collection from Paris Fashion Week.
Models wear designs from the Balmain spring collection
 at Paris Fashion Week :

 

All of this dress is so cute. Many peoples like it. :)

PARIS FASHION WEEK WINTER 2012

IT had been a new start at the house of Gianfranco Ferré last year - its previous creative directors Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi were reportedly asked to leave when the brand got itself a new owner in the Dubai-based Paris group. And so in stepped Stefan Citron and Federico Piaggi to begin afresh - and that is what they did, taking what you thought was a dress with two sleeves and doing something to it that suddenly meant two sleeves became one or even none, but you get the gist.

The issue in the past had been money - and while we all would love to play dressing up in a very expensive dressing up box, there does have to be some pragmatism in place. So how did the duo play that today? With a bit of help from Helmut Newton and his iconic portraits to create a combination of graphic but feminine designs.

“It  was really beautiful and so polished, pared-down,” said Vogue’s Lucinda Chambers after the show, highlighting the strength of the neutral colour palette – grey and oyster, blue and metal – to show off the fresh cuts. “It was effortless but beautifully put together,” she said.

Where last time it had perhaps gone too far in its play with cuts, this time the label struck the right balance of oversized lapels and collars and innovative use of zips and stylised aesthetics. Each look came complete with a pair of gloves that were held in place by zips and metal cuffs to ruche them up the arm – a shape and volume that was echoed elsewhere with sleeves and collars that were layered up to striking effect.

Waists were magnified by belted coats and the continuation of volume throughout the collection – a high collar on a poncho-cape veering off and down the side and unravelling into the rest of the garment.

Zipped-up panel minidresses had something sci-fi about them and came in silver and gold, while simpler-looking – but won’t have been to craft – evening, essentially, cocktail dresses boasted durable zips down their sides.

The show notes told us that Piaggi and Citron “follow their vision of the garment as a structure in movement, forging an androgyny that, freed from all rigidity, is totally sensual”. Their mission seemed to be accomplished. 

PARIS FASHION WEEK SUMMER 2012

The Observer's deputy fashion editor Helen Seamons, dives into the world of Chanel at Paris fashion week summer 2012 :

'This is a collection about excess.', Sarah Burton said before her show, which explored beauty at its most extreme.

A model walks the runway at the Alexander McQueen spring/summer 2012 collection :

By and large, over the past week, Paris has offered some fantastic escapism from the grim reality that besets us all. Come the last day, lace, organza, light as air dresses and sugared almond colours had worked their way into our imaginary summer wardrobes. And then, at the final hurdle, as we were all about to go home, there was Miuccia Prada with grey shirts, black skirts, scatterings of ashen roses, stomp-worthy velvet mules, red eyeshadow (all the better to make you look like you have been crying your eyes out), heavy black velvet ribbon ties, sticky hair pasted onto the scalp and an apocalyptic soundtrack.
If the Vuitton show was a fashion reverie, Miu Miu was a merciless slap in the face. We can always rely on Miuccia to make us sit up and think. Piece by individual piece, each pin tucked dress, lace tunic and patchwork skirt will sit neatly with the mood of summer femininity. But the presentation was rooted in a starker reality. And you have to pay attention. Miuccia is a graduate of political science and mime, for goodness sake. Nothing goes down her catwalk by accident.
I feared for the models in their pin tucked cotton dresses, given volume with the elastic gathering of a child’s smock. The soundtrack seemed to imply they were like babes in a hostile wood. Dirndl shaped dresses made of a patch work combination that looked like it had come from a homespun rag bag were topped with capes or bubble backed coats that sat innocently off the shoulder. Peplum frills on skirts and capes, rose embellished cowboy boots and little gold framed bags all spoke of childlike dress up. But the catwalk presentation suggested their preoccupation made them unaware of impending dangers.
I can think of many ways to express a nihilistic world view. I am not convinced a dress is the best way to do it. But when everyone seems to have reached concensus, you can always rely on Miuccia to start another conversation.
This one scared the pants off me, I can tell you. Some photos :