Dior, Always Ready to Wear
When Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux, the dual heads of the Dior design team, presented the brand’s haute couture collection in January, the chief reproach critics had was that the designs hewed too closely to ready-to-wear…
Lanvin Looks for its Future
The brief bow that Lanvin’s owner Shaw-Lan Wang took at the end of the show on Thursday night was a bit premature. The collection, which was created by the in-house design team and lead by Chemena Kamali — who only …
Loewe’s New Luxe
The latest Loewe collection began with a meditative voice repeating to « breath » and that « the change had already taken place ». Was this some sort of cultish indoctrination tape or a recording taken at an Ashram retreat? Just …
Chalayan’s Teutonic trip
Hussein Chalayan is one of those designers, like Rei Kawakubo, whose creations are never, ever just about clothing to wear. He is a deep, emotionally driven man who, with each collection, reveals just a …
Future Perfect for Paco Rabanne
The Paco Rabanne brand has always been about looking towards the future. And if there is one place where the future has been warmly embraced, it’s Asia, maybe more specifically Japan, where every kooky techie trend …
Balmain Goes Incognito
There was a lot of hide-and-go-seek going on at the Balmain show on Thursday. Before designer Olivier Rousteing even got the show underway the audience was left waiting for a late-arriving Kanye West who, once he finally …
Redemption’s Rock and Roll Soul
This season designer Gabriele Moratti decided to take his Redemption brand back to the multicultural microcosm that was Andy Warhol’s Factory. A place where it didn’t matter what you looked like, where you came from or who …
Lemaire’s Confident Clothing
When the show started the photographers almost immediately began to howl in protest. The models disregarded them completely, turning their heads nonchalantly left or right. Occasionally they would look ahead, but their …
Margiela: More Than the Sum of its Parts
There was a magpie mood at the Masion Margiela show on Wednesday where designer John Galliano presented a collection that saw different elements of dress meld together in eclectic ensembles. This form of fashion is …
Rochas Reins It In
In an interesting twist, Alessandro Dell’Acqua went in two opposite directions in terms of design for each house he works at this season. For his N21 label, his sartorial choices were more daring and tougher in spirit while at …
Cedric Charlier’s Modern Mariners
Cedric Charlier really got his sartorial sea legs this season with a strong collection that took its inspiration from the always chic mariner style. « I started by looking at old photographs of sailors, » said the designer backstage after …
Dries Van Noten’s Decadent Perfection
“Passion” exclaimed designer Dries Van Noten after his show as a one-word explanation of the pitch perfect collection he had just presented to the fashion world. It is hard to argue with his point. The lineup certainly had people …
Courrèges Heats up the Future
The future. This is the essence of the Courrèges brand. And now, in the hands of Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, the house’s future is also looking very bright. The duo once again brought the fashion world to an …