#alexis mabille
Paris Fashion Week - Days 1 & 2
The last fashion week, Paris, started three days ago to say bye to fashion lovers with its amount of innovation, craziness and fantasy put into clothes. Let’s see these first exciting two days.
Day 1
Léa Peckre (photo 1) chose to explore deconstruction and reconstruction. And what better way to do it if not tailoring? Beautiful jackets with separate panels forming a structured piece or patchwork skirts with raw hems underlining the different parts were the strong pieces of this collection.
The most ironic - if there’s one - versione of death and mourning was at stake in Dévastée collection, full of humour and lightness. Total black was lit up by white chiffon over simple short dresses and long tops, with prints depicting graveyards, gravestones and ghosts with smiling faces. It was the idea of youth as a period so far away from death that can even dare laugh at it. Brilliant. Anrealage (photo 2) started its show with a first part in total black where the powdery white of the centre of the looks seemed to be as an escamotage to make everything look even more black with its difference of tone. Genial the use of the two contrasting colours (b&w) to explore the theme of light: it was translated into simple military-like woolen coats, or knitwear, even as a mosaic degrading from pure white to grey and the blackest black. The second part was surprisingly…colour. It made it more complete, the prints hit by limelights enhanced the power of the light showing the strong contrast with the part of the looks still drenched in darkness.
AtJacquemus show (photo 3) you probably felt like it was an exhibit of contemporary art where the focus was on form. It was like an analysis on the power of cut, intended literally as the thing you do with a pair of scissors. That explains a lot: it explains the half-naked models sent down the runway, it explained the cut-out pieces of fabric covering some of the models’ faces as well as the ‘second face’ drawn next to the real face of some other models. And it also explains the aesthetic of the looks: different materials cut into geometrical or more irregular shapes covering the body through the use of strings, bows, knots, creating a new never-seen-before wardrobe.
Coperni Femme delivered a total collection: an ideal wardrobe where basic pieces were mixed with more conceptual and unique others, where the real innovation came from details - sometimes even not so subtly: a coat with petal-like shapes juxtaposed giving the idea of movement, very long sleeves, or menswear pinstripe fabric for a very feminine little dress.
Day 2
At Lemaire focus was on the shoulders: big, strong, underlined by necklines which let them naked and sexily showing. Coats and strapless dresses were the key-pieces of such a collection. Cédric Charlier (photo 4) married a vague American sportswear 'cheerleadish’ vibe in the silhouettes and in the pleated skirts, in the lengths taken a little more than above the knee, to an elegant appeal, made of contrasting shades never too bright or in-your-face: there was navy blue with bordeaux, green and black. It was simple, yet successful: loved the choice of materials, giving structure to the little cocktail dresses and short jackets.
Grounded Glamour was the name of Dries Van Noten’s collection (photo 5), and it immediately spoke to you from the very first look: there was brocade with beautiful golden embroideries, paired with military-like ensemble in oversize shapes and neutral colours, a little lived-in looking. It was the description of a brand wanting to dress with opulence the people of today, with their needs coming from living in an urban jungle. Always glam.
Rochas (photo 6) was a roller coaster between conservative shapes and details and sexiness to its extreme sophistication. Conservative were the colours, with a chain of looks in brown, reminding old coats worn by poor people in the years of the war maybe - that’s what it made me think, actually - conservative were the shapes, with long straight-lined dresses with short puff sleeves, conservative were the details, very high necklines closed by bows. The collection was cheered up now and then by a flame of brightness, like the yellow of the dress in the photo. Sexy was instead the black chiffon, covering and showing the body at the same time, beautifully decorated by delicate prints of birds and leaves.
An architectural collection came from Aganovich (photo 7). The fabric and its cure were the real protagonists. Pinstripes, white, black and white tweed-like fabric designed new innovative lines crossing the body and manipulating the body’s silhouette. Sometimes they were sharp like knives, sometimes rounded, following the body lines. The result was always a harmonic movement of shapes structuring the body like a sculpture.
An interesting theme was explored in Alexis Mabille’s collection, all about the idea of knotting and the crossing of lines, brought through every look of the collection in different ways: sometimes it was the detail of two fabrics tied together, sometimes it was about strings crossing the dress, sometimes it was translated into print.
xxx
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“You’re unusually powerful at this stuff, aren’t you? That’s mmmm… intimidating.”✶
JULIAN ✧ masquerade attire
Alexis Mabille ✦ Fall 2012 Menswear
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