Byline: Suzy Menkes
PARIS -- As a ghostly, holographic image of Kate Moss, hair flying and folds flowing, appeared and dematerialized inside a glass pyramid, it not only expressed the drama of Alexander McQueen's splendid show. It also summed up the story of the season: modern romance.
When John Galliano plays country music, McQueen abandons harsh rock 'n' roll, Rei Kawakubo has operatic arias and Junya Watanabe the liquid piano notes of Mozart, you know that the fashion mood for the 2006 winter season has turned to sweet melancholy.
McQueen's return to his roots, both as an exceptional showman and to his family's Scottish heritage, made a powerful fashion moment. The show was a perfect rendition of the designer's precise tailoring, with sweeping bird plumage hats reflecting the russet Scottish colors. It also had swooshing Victoriana with the sexual undercurrent found in "The Piano." It was a triumph of imaginative design and presentation.
"The highlands are so romantic but this time it is less aggressive, just so beautiful i and so much work," said McQueen, referring to a previous look-back-in-anger at the Battle of Culloden at the start of his career. This time, he focused on the war's widows, whose weeds were raised to couture finesse as small tweed jackets nipped over flaring skirts, lush fitted coats, red fox fur trimmings or a thick-knit cabled coat. There was an extra edge when kilt pleats were flipped or a jacket exuded a military spirit.
For evening, the clothes soared into costumes, with frills frothing out of McQueen's signature tailcoat or flourishes of feather and jet beading. As a brand image-maker, they were superb pieces and now that the designer has launched a lower price McQ range as urban street wear, it was a joy to see him take this high road to romance.
Galliano is another great showman and the flickering wrought-iron candelabras, standing sentinel on the runway, suggested a Gothic crypt where the dead were due to rise. Instead, out came women with round-crowned Amish hats, noble faces, long coats, simple dresses, wool-knit bags and beat-up boots that suggested months of toil in the soil. The country music soundtrack climaxed with "Blowin' in the Wind," as all Galliano's sweetness filled the runway as though his romantic side were being played in minor key.
"Romantic, ethereal i Gothic American girls," was Galliano's description of these graceful clothes where patches of Stars and Stripes were worked into bodices and skirts, while small denim jackets, skirts long and simple and dresses printed with faint paisley patterns or faded roses suggested down-home days on the wild frontier.
Nobody has caught in clothing the conflicting emotions of contemporary women like Rei Kawakubo. Her Comme des Garcons show, staged in the halls of the Sorbonne, was about masking and revealing the female persona, but not just when "La Donna e Mobile" was on the soundtrack. This was the man/woman dichotomy that Kawakubo has played over the years but with a calmer and more graceful rendition of feminine dresses folded at the chest of a mannish pantsuit or a graceful dress turning to show trousers at the back. When a corset was built into the torso of a tailored trouser suit or one abstract piece of pinstriped cloth pinned to the shoulder of a dress, the clothes were a sly and subtle take on the feminist mystique.
The masks i such a powerful story of the international season i covered one eye, perhaps under a rakish fedora hat, or they sparkled scarlet to match the glittering red lips as the models took their finale to the toreador chorus from "Carmen." In this show, Kawakubo, such an exceptional designer, captured within her own spirit and history, the fashion vibe of the moment.
No house can exist without a creative source. That was proven at Chloe where the label has had a fine romance while it was designed by Phoebe Philo with her intuitive understanding of women and her cool edge. Her abrupt departure has left Chloe with a team of three who seemed to be straining to follow her last season's lead with puffy baby doll dresses. Yet they were desperate to get away from it when vast pants and even baggy overalls brought on the clowns.
There were still pretty clothes, especially the puffy blouses in cumulus colors like dawn pink and rain-washed blue, but whereas Philo's Chloe looked like a grown woman squeezing out a few last drops of childhood innocence, this show was either sugary or awkward. Although playing with big volumes is a current trend, the elephant pants looked like the uniform of a constant gardener. The show also looked a bit like Marni, with its homespun, nature-knows-best fabrics. If the idea is to follow the path to femininity taken by Philo, this show stumbled i not least as a model took a tumble on the stomping platform shoes.
"Anti, anarchy, army!, " said Junya Watanabe backstage after the Mozart piano music finally ended and the last urban warriors walked by in khaki green lace dresses, their faces covered with hair-and-camouflage masking and shoes as spiky as a Sid Vicious Punk hairdo. In spite of all the aggressive accessories, the models looked so pretty that you knew that underneath the designer's three-season exploration of Punk, Watanabe is a romantic. He is also a superb cutter, constructing coats, jackets and dresses into curving, womanly shapes, even when the clothes were pieced together from camouflage, with recycled military khakis and a smattering of red and blue patches. Why move from the clash and crash of Punk to the tinkling of Mozart?
"Punk is old, this is new," said Watanabe.
The Kenzo show opened with roses strewn over dresses, bags and boots and ended with models, graphically clad in black and white, in a cherry blossom bower. That summed up neatly the spirit of Antonio Marras, who has developed for Kenzo a quirky sweetness, dosed with precise geometry that stops the romance turning mushy. Square cape coats, big jumper dresses controlled with small vests and mannish Prince of Wales check, contrasting with lace, showed Marras playing with strict and soft, male and female, with a clear vision of modern romance.
Nina Ricci is a brand with a sweet tooth, but this season Lars Nilsson gave it a harder edge with the helmet hat (another must-have of the season) and with cape coats and flaring jackets that created a fresh geometry. The new generation pantsuit i with small jacket, vest and cropped pants i competed with the pretty Ricci dresses, which were still flimsy and lady-like at night, but also came with watery and wood-grain patterns that were artistic yet strong.
There is something increasingly frustrating about Martin Margiela hiding his light under a bushel, or in this case under a leather sofa, which was recycled as the front of a dress. The Belgian designer's other furnishings-into-frocks (with hanging labels to prove it) included upholstered plush fabrics matching the floor rug, a gilded picture frame as a necklace and beaded car seat back-rest as a decorative collar. Some of this was witty and always imaginative. But why can't more of the designer's fine, classic collection be shown among these oh-so-familiar Margiela tricks? There were strong pieces from a precise trench coat to elegantly simple dresses. But whereas Hussein Chalayan worked the furniture theme to produce real clothing, Margiela's antics are looking increasingly like a gimmick. He has built an empire on his talent, but seems to want to mask it from the fashion world, as much as he conceals himself.
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Suzy Menkes is the fashion editor of the International Herald Tribune.