FASHION: 07 October

Paris designers showcase summer dresses
The dress is the star of next summer’s wardrobe, and Paris designers on Saturday offered a dizzying array of options ranging from tunics to baby dolls and sweeping floor-length gowns.  French label Chloe, one of the hottest tickets in town, sent out richly embroidered ’70s-style shifts that paid homage to American heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.  Kenzo went African with brightly printed muumuus and matching turbans. A floor-length sleeveless fuchsia goddess gown with a jeweled Empire waistband recalled the hothouse glamour of Elizabeth Taylor in the 1960s. At Hermes, singer Janet Jackson and other front row guests lounged in orange-canvassed deck chairs as models ambled over a set evoking a giant ocean liner in airy long chiffon sundresses printed with sunflowers or polka dots.  After several years of frilly, feminine styles, fashion is swinging toward minimalism with a focus on volume and cut. Dresses are flaring out into trapeze shapes, often with sculpted balloon sleeves, the better to show off long tanned legs.  Chloe is largely to credit for the austere styles that began flooding department stores this fall.  For next season, it stuck to clean lines with prim schoolgirl coats and Peter Pan collars. Short A-line shifts featured patchwork detail while tunics came embroidered with circular patterns of sparkling stones or more subtle wood and gilt beads.  “I loved it, it was so beautiful,” actress Kate Bosworth told The Associated Press. “(There were) bolder prints than I’ve seen Chloe do before, which is really exciting.”  Retailers adore the label, whose sales more than doubled last year. Closely watched as an indicator of trends, it is under even more intense scrutiny since its designer Phoebe Philo resigned in January to spend more time with her family.  Chloe said it would announce a replacement next week, amid reports that it has tapped Paolo Melin Anderson, a little-known designer previously at Italy’s Marni label.  The last two collections have been conceived by an in-house team under Yvan Mispelaere, who bid farewell to friends backstage before his impending departure for Milan, where he will design for Gucci.  Robert Burke, head of the luxury consulting firm Robert Burke Associates, said the minimalist trend required skillful presentation on the part of retailers.  “It’s a more intellectual sale, as opposed to an impulsive sale. It’s all in how it’s displayed, how it’s merchandised, how it’s shown in the windows,” he told the AP.  “It’s always a balance of making sure that you don’t have too much of a sea of black in your store, that you still have color and you still have some embellishment, because while the fashion world moves very fast, sometimes the consumer doesn’t move as fast.”  Even John Galliano has succumbed to the new mood of sobriety.  The British designer is famous for staging theatrical catwalk displays featuring stylized versions of the more wearable outfits that customers will later find in stores.  No more. The only excitement at Galliano’s show was the paparazzi crush around Hollywood couple Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, and the barreling late entrance of celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe in a long, white fringed gown.  The creations on show were pallid, literally and figuratively, with only a few shots of purple, green and electric blue to cut through the sea of white suits and nude chiffon gowns.  Draped dresses in wet-look silk jersey featured rolled sleeves that merged into a thick tube of fabric framing a bare back. Bold black and gold brushstroke and dot prints vaguely evoked the paintings of American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.  Huge wire mesh hats by milliner Stephen Jones left some members of the audience nostalgic for the days when the fantasy extended to the clothes.

Sleek whites, giant hats at John Galliano show
Designer John Galliano opened his spring/summer 2007 ready-to-wear collection on Saturday with sleek white suits and ended with swish evening gowns under enormous wire hats.  His show, in an old indoor market that is now used as tennis courts, was a hit with the star-packed audience.  Actress Demi Moore showed up with partner Ashton Kutcher and sat in the same row as singers Janet Jackson and Lenny Kravitz.  “I loved it, I thought it was beautiful,” Jackson said after watching the models with fringes or partly backcombed hair and thick painted eyebrows.  Rachel Zoe, a celebrity stylist who is behind the looks of actress Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie said: “I thought it was so good.”  Galliano, who is also the designer for the LVMH-owned Christian Dior, started with a white jacket with big shoulders and a wide collar over a slim fitting skirt. He moved on to a colourful selection of short dresses ending with glamorous, long gowns set off with oversized hats.  The final outfit was pale blue with discs and swirls in shiny gold embroidery with a huge black and blue foam circles arranged on wires around the head.AFRICAN DESERT Earlier in the day, Kenzo designer Antonio Marras dazzled guests with bright colours set against an African desert which he said was a nod to tensions between cultures.  His models paraded vivid pinks and greens and African-style headgear down a runway covered with sand in an underground room in the Louvre art museum.  “Today we have really some big problems between different cultures, between different nationalities that are arriving every year from other countries and that plays into my work,” Marras said.  The bright colours represented different populations mixing together in the desert, he said.  The final dress for the LVMH-owned label was cream and covered in red flowers and jewels around the neckline. A huge train billowed out behind the model as she was followed back into the sand dunes by cut-out birds hanging from the ceiling.  On Friday night, British designer Alexander McQueen wowed the crowd with a theatrical show set in the Cirque d’Hiver, an old-fashioned circus.  An enormous cobweb-covered chandelier hung low over the stage and two string quartets played as the models displayed tailored and elegant clothes on Spanish and Edwardian themes.  He created corseted dresses, some with exaggerated hips, which turned into flowing skirts, and modern skinny trousers for the Gucci-owned label.  The finale was a long dress made of pink and purple flowers, some of them falling off around the stage.  At the Chloe show, where actor Kevin Costner was among the guests, high-waisted trousers in browns and oranges were teamed with ruffles, belts and jackets.  The label, which is owned by Swiss-based luxury goods maker Richemont is known for its romantic bohemian looks and targets a young clientele. Chloe has not yet announced a replacement to designer Phoebe Philo who quit at the beginning of the year to spend time with her family. Paris Fashion Week finishes on Sunday.