Eric Wilson is InStyle’s Fashion News Director. Sit front row at Fashion Week with him by following him on Twitter (@EricWilsonSays) and Instagram.
Sometimes I fear that a French sense of humor does not translate so well into English. For instance, at Alber Elbaz’s book party the other night, after back-to-back shows left no time to eat, I made the mistake of grubbing hors d’oeuvres from a hunky waiter carrying a silver tray of sweets, little baby shrimps planted on some sort of cream tart and, curiously, entire slices of cheesecake.
“They’re not real,” said the hunk.
They were made of plastic.
“Deception,” hunk said smugly, while laughing hysterically.
“Are you real?” I asked.
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The good news, anyway, is that Karl Lagerfeld’s collection for Chanel, as Paris Fashion Week came to a close, was far more amusing. It was staged on a movie-set version of a French boulevard erected in the Grand Palais (pictured, above), complete with an asphalt street, on which the models walked in singles, pairs, trios and groups, chatting as if they were out for a stroll, which happens to be a national French pastime. His designs of the last few seasons have been far more colorful and bold, downright playful takes on tweed, and this spring season was filled with wonderful delights, like a tweed messenger bag with buttons and pockets like a jacket, sexy knit cardigans (made sexier by Gisele Bündchen, pictured below) and great shorts looks in banker pinstripes.
So much of contemporary fashion has been about interpreting street looks in couture, especially at Chanel, where Lagerfeld recently made a collection with cement sequins, that this collection seemed to be almost winking at the audience.
You want street fashion? He’ll bring you the street. Lagerfeld is a keen observer of the Paris environment, concluding his show with a “manifestation,” an ever common occurrence here when protests over just about anything will bring traffic to a grinding halt for hours. The models stormed out carrying banners and signs that said “Free Freedom” and “Make Fashion, Not War” (pictured, below).Understandably, some viewers were offended by Lagerfeld’s vision, which included military jackets that are part of one of the spring season’s major trends, given the coincidence of protests happening in Hong Kong and elsewhere, even the disruption of travel throughout Europe that resulted from the Air France pilots’ strike. In Lagerfeld’s defense, his models were marching for the cause of feminism, and his accessories this season promote messages like “Ladies First.” You can hardly argue with his cause.
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Valentino was a sweeter jest, a nautical reverie by designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli with prints of seahorses, nautilus shells and some strategically placed starfishes that any Little Mermaid would love (pictured, below left). This was the sexier, lighter side of Valentino we had not seen before from the designers, who were in very good humor.
The final day of Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday began with a journey to the Bois de Boulogne where Louis Vuitton‘s Nicolas Ghesquière showed an amazing collection in an even more amazing building, the new Fondation Louis Vuitton designed by Frank Gehry. Rising from the forest like a spaceship, the structure of enormous, overlapping glass petals resembles a giant ship from the front and one of those enormous bug things from Starship Troopers from the side, with a tiered fountain of running water that flows next to a staircase descending into its center. The show took place in a darkened hall of mirrors, with the soundtrack from Close Encounters of the Third Kind playing as guests took their seats. Then a video installation of talking heads cryptically said things like “the audience is asked to sit in a place that doesn’t exist for now” and “the LV house wants to explore the ability to travel to any part of the universe without moving.” And then began a dance remix of “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel.
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Ghesquière loves science fiction and anything techno, but he also loves clothes that are based in contemporary reality, and this collection was filled with wonderful options, from more of his hugely influential varnished leather mini-dresses (pictured, above right) to high-waisted jeans to a gorgeous white lace dress to a perfect navy double-breasted jacket to cropped velvet trousers. There was also a strikingly whimsical cartoon print of bourgeois items like matchbooks, takeout packaging and an eyelash curler that appeared on jeans and a dress. This, at the very least, suggests Ghesquière is not afraid to bring a sense of levity to a luxury brand, and that’s no laughing matter.
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