As a welcoming and inspirational venue for both French and foreign designers, Paris was ideally equipped to host Fashion Week. The capital of design welcomed 89 prêt-à-porter fashion shows, an average of ten shows a day. On the Parisian podiums, unlike in Milan and New York, personality comes before marketing, which is driven by the profitability of the label, and it is this work that fashion designers themselves do which is reflected in their collections.
“Very often, apart from in the big firms, the approach is not just about the brand. The designers each create their own universe. In Paris, a collection which everyone is unanimous about is not a good collection. A collection must be controversial. If everyone agrees, it’s not a good collection. It would be better to show it in New York or Milan” explains Jean-Paul Cauvin, fashion editor of Fashion Daily News.
In Paris, there was humour in reaffirmation and assured femininity. On the podiums of Dries Van Noten, Nina Ricci and Isabel Marant, the fifties version of rétro inspiration is making a comeback in the continuity of the last Prada and Marc Jacobs collections in Milan and New York. As a post-crisis result, the designers, having become less fanciful, are succeeding in maintaining a clean line.
Fortified by its stunning success, the house of Balmain is keeping to the essentials. Since last season, Christophe Decarnin, its artistic director, has been making foreigners fantasise by playing on Parisians’ néobourgeois spirit. The same applies to next winter. The Balmain woman is dressed in a sexy and baroque style, in velvet damask and black or purple brocade ornamented with gold thread. The return of glitz is confirmed at Balmain. There is also a trend towards velvet, as with the Indian designer Manish Arora, Christian Wijnants and RM by Roland Mouret. The collection of this London-based Frenchman mixes astrakhan, velvet, double crepe and silk, worn slim, asymmetrical skirts, tailored dresses and flesh-coloured, fuchsia, wine or aluminium grey draped jackets. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was not in the front row of the show. But she had already given the designer the best present that she could. On Tuesday 2nd March, dressed in a petrol blue sheath dress, France’s First Lady dared to wear the “second skin” dress from RM by Roland Mouret at the dinner in Paris in honour of the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. “Audaciously tight-fitting” according to the Daily Mail, Bruni’s dress (which she wore without a bra) scandalised the English language press and provided a fine publicity coup for this designer adored by the stars. Leather or imitation leather (Christian Dior, Gareth Pugh, Barbara Bui) and fur (Chapurin, Viktor & Rolf, Anne Demeulemeester) are once more making their mark among the leading materials of the season.
The front rows contained fewer stars than usual. The Paris Fashion Week did not bow to the demands of Anna Wintour. By spending only 3 days in Italy, the Editor in Chief of Vogue US sowed discord in the Milan fashion industry. Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and John Galliano chose to show a few days at the end of the Paris Fashion Week.
Asked by FashionUnited about the health of the Paris fashion industry and of couturiers’ prêt-à-porter, Didier Grumbach, President of the French Couture Federation, remained confident. “In Paris, apart from Christian Lacroix, fashion houses have shown a good survival instinct. The proof? Designers are still in demand with fashion fans all around the world.” 4 days before the final curtain of Fashion Week, Didier Grumbach reminded us of the golden rule of Parisian fashion: “Marketing on its own doesn’t work in Paris. The only way for designers to adapt to the world is to innovate. It is design that makes the difference. Marketing follows trends but trends do not make design.”
From our correspondent in Paris
Image 1: Balmain F/W 2010
Image 2: RM by Roland Mouret F/W 2010
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