It was all about creature comforts at Paris Fashion Week on Sunday, with Kenzo treating bleary-eyed guests to coffee and cookies and singer Lorde bathing in the new spring sun inside the Grand Palais.
Here are the highlights of autumn-winter ready-to-wear 2015 shows:
Kenzo says layering is in
This season’s mantra is: pile it all on. We’ve seen it notably at Lanvin, Dries Van Noten — and now at Kenzo’s draped, voluminous and colourful fashion spectacle.
It takes a lot to drag fashionistas out early on a Sunday morning to a venue on the outskirts of the city. But Kenzo rewarded those who did — feeding them tasty delights — and treating them to an incredibly energetic presentation, in which gargantuan rectangular mirrored walls moved behind models in the warehouse venue.
The collection too continued this energy in its vivid splashes of kinetic graphic lines and flashes of contrasting, coloured prints.
But autumn-winter was all about the layering. Geometric lines featured on layered A-line column dresses, topped off with funky asymmetrical poncho-hoods.
One billowing printed look featured a play on jarring prints — the skirt looking Eastern, the leopard print top, Western.
Kenzo is all about the cultural fusion. The dark looks featured a nice play of camouflage print on a poncho and assorted jungle pants: if you looked closely you realised the pattern was, in fact, of very unmilitaristic flowers. It was tongue in cheek, and is bound to be a hit.
Celine undresses
Designer Phoebe Philo riffed on the theme of undoing, undressing and unbuttoning in a highly creative collection that ended up being more chic than provocative. The Celine woman is, after all, no show-off.
Inner pocket straps were exposed on the torso, one in beautiful burnt orange, with its belt flapping down, undone.
A loose and stylish cream minimalist poncho sweater looked like the model was caught trying to take it off, with one arm in and the other out, and the neck-hole skewed to the side. A cream shawl with a russet band was wrapped haphazardly around the body, as if ready to fall off onto the floor.
Half-unbuttoned, loosely-structured floral shirts were accessorised with multiple huge, abstracted fur cuffs — held together by the normally-invisible string that goes inside the coat.
The later sections included a beautiful play on triple colours like one loose, silk ankle-length dress in deep blue, white and red. Only a designer like Philo can make a collection this “quirky” ooze style.
Chloe
Eighteen-year-old singer Lorde led the VIP pack at Chloe, inside the Grand Palais, where Paris’ spring sun beamed through the venue’s glass ceiling.
It was a beautiful touch that nicely set off the collection designed by Clare Waight Keller.
It was on-trend menswear and boho looks in vogue this season, with, for the most part, long-line loose flowing silhouettes.
A militaristic long pea coat with huge lapels and gold buttons set the show going, fusing into a sumptuous Sherlock Holmes-style cape coat in grey, a double breasted peaked jacket in grey check wool, or a scooped boyish waistcoat.
The bohemian looks include a long diaphanous silk crepe dress in purple, twinned with a long thin black neck scarf. It was a safe collection with very eclectic proportions.
