Kanye West may have more than a dozen Grammy awards to his name, but fear of the fashion world turned the rapper, singer and music producer extraordinaire into a nervous wreck on Saturday, as he debuted his new luxury clothing line at Paris Fashion Week.
He was right to worry: The fashion industry is notoriously catty and, even though West had been a front-row regular at fashion shows for years, it had greeted the news that he was planning to launch his own line with raised eyebrows, preemptively consigning him to the same category of celebrity designers as the likes of Lindsay Lohan and her leggings.
But West proved naysayers wrong with his slick collection of sexy, hard-edged looks that were hands-down better — in terms of design and construction — than much of what’s been shown during the first five days of Paris’ spring-summer 2012 ready-to-wear collections.
Photo: Reuters
Attended by the creme de la creme of the fashion world and a sprinkling of celebrities, including Lohan herself, West’s debut was the event of Paris Fashion Week, and it stole the thunder from Saturday’s other shows.
Jean Paul Gaultier can usually be counted on to deliver a real fashion spectacle, but Saturday’s show was strangely plodding and staid. With Paris in the grips of a freak heat wave, the venue became an sort of inferno and the show’s hour-late start turned the whole thing into a sort of Chinese torture, redeemed only by the beauty of the clothes.
Usually Viktor & Rolf collections are exercises in an almost ostentatious creativity, but Saturday’s display was less about over-the-top experimentation than detail. But outrageousness had not completely deserted the building: The models took to the catwalk from beneath a giant pleated skirt the size of a giant teepee.
Photo: Reuters
France’s reigning queen of knitwear, Sonia Rykiel, was also more subdued than usual, though her pleated culottes and relaxed pant suits in creamy whites and yellows were as still sporty and fun as usual.
Australian-born designer Martin Grant’s was one of those collections where you coveted simply everything. The wide-legged trousers in canary silk jersey; the halter tops in graphic black and white prints; the maxi-dresses hung with floor-length strips, like seaweed. It was a great collection and among the strongest shows of the day.
Paris’ Fashion Week finishes today.
KANYE WEST
Given their more than healthy dose of skepticism about the West’s line, it was with slightly humbled wonder that the fashion editors, stylists and journalists hand-picked to attend the late-night show greeted the sophisticated, highly designed looks on the catwalk.
Sure, West didn’t reinvent the wheel: You could see the influence of established designers — many of shows he frequented over the years. There was a bit of Balmain in the short, sex-drenched dresses and some Givenchy in the gothic, bondage-y leather jackets and skirts, for example.
But luxed-up streetwear elements, like hooded jackets made in a mosaic of crocodile skins, gave the collection a unique voice of its own.
The specifics of project remained foggy: The extent of West’s involvement in the actual design remained unclear, as did the identities and pedigrees of those on his design team. But West’s emotional attachment to the brand was clear.
Speaking to reporters after the show, the seasoned performer kept repeating “I’m so scared, I’m so nervous.”
“The biggest conversation I hope I can end tonight is whole ‘celebrity designer’ thing,’’ he said once he’d managed to collect himself. “That’s the biggest hurdle when you want to get amazing people to work for you.’’
Another challenge, he added, was figuring out who to work with. The fashion industry is notoriously opaque and often inscrutable for outsiders, even ones as well connected as him.
Celebrities (R ’n’ B singer Ciara), designers (Joseph Altuzarra, Alexander Wang and Olivier Theyskens) and celebrity designers (the Olsen twins) turned out for West’s show, which drew a mob of celebrity-crazed onlookers.
Ciara, defying the stifling weather in a fur stole, said “he did a great job. I walked away from this show feeling like I would love to wear this line. There is so much in it that’s right up my alley.
“Especially since for me, it’s so cool to see someone come from our music world and do something like this. It’s really hard.”
US designer Jeremy Scott concurred.
“Everyone probably thought it was going to be another, like, Jennifer Lopez’s Macy’s line and it’s not, it’s really clear it’s not,” said Scott, who’s known for his kooky, colorful designs. “Kanye has impeccable taste and you see his taste level is up there. He’s a fan of design across the board. I have five-hour long conversations with him all the time about everything because he’s so obsessed, and I think we got a little bit of an insight into his mind there.”
Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent offered a superbly tailored but tempered collection
for spring-summer 2012 on Monday, with designer Stefano Pilati drawing on the past of the famous luxury label without providing any jaw-dropping standouts.
Mint and forest greens, grays and whites were the palette, with trapeze coats, cigarette pants and backless silk tops providing a nod to the 1960s and 1970s, the heyday of Saint Laurent.
But the collection was restrained, as a counterpoint to the venue. Inside the opulent Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, models walked a circuitous catwalk that wove through six individual rooms, heavy crystal chandeliers and painted ceilings of angels and cherubs overhead.
The crowd included Australian pop star Kylie Minogue, French actress Isabelle Huppert, and Mexican actress Salma Hayek, who is married to Francois-Henri Pinault, chief executive and chairman of the PPR Group, which owns the luxury label.
With insecurity the sentiment du jour, it might be best to show restraint. As the line notes for the show cryptically state, Pilati “forges ahead of the dull obscurities of the moment with a crystalline vision for Yves Saint Laurent.”
Whether Yves Saint Laurent considers the global economic malaise to be dull or obscure was unclear. But the Italian Pilati showed none of the over-the-top exuberance seen in the recent shows in Milan, where bold primary colors, fringe, sparkle and shimmer seemed to shout “ciao!” to the euro-zone crisis and general sentiment of gloom.
A mint-green swing coat ending at mid-thigh and overlaid with black tulle detailing jump-started the show and set the tone for ladylike looks that could have adorned a young Audrey Hepburn.
Skirts flared at the knee and pure white suits for ladies that lunch got a jolt of understated luxury with jacquard fabric.
The YSL signature ruffle at the wrist was in full force, with ruffles cascading down the sides of party dresses cut above the knee.
Pilati played with volume, with oversized, airy tops billowing around
the sinewy models and lightweight pants sewn from printed silks that evoked Marrakech.
But the collection turned more assertive as Pilati showed 1970s-inspired silk tops with fully exposed backs and a flowing black pantsuit that evoked Studio 54 at its peak.
Vanessa Bruno
It takes a special girl to pull off an outfit that looks like it was made out of grandma’s old quilt.
But models at hip Parisian designer Vanessa Bruno’s spring-summer 2012 ready-to-wear show on Monday not only pulled off dresses patched together out of old T-shirts and what appeared to be baby blankets — they made them the very pinnacle of Paris bourgeois bohemian chic.
A-line dresses in crisp Liberty flower prints — given a sophisticated touch by strips of shimmering silver lame — were paired with fringed poncho-sweater hybrids in nubby oatmeal yard which, again, looked like Granny’s work. Boxy little dresses were made out of color-blocked panels, some printed with rosebuds, others with what appeared to be T-shirts that had been washed almost to transparency.
Bruno’s ability to take what would normally appear to be dowdy pieces and infuse them with a uniquely Parisian neglige chic has won her legions of fans in France and a growing number abroad, too.
One of several French retailers who are popular in the US, including Isabel Marant and Jerome Dreyfus, Bruno opened a boutique in Los Angeles last year.
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