GIORGIO ARMANI
It was all about peaked shoulders and 1970s glamour for fashion icon Giorgio Armani’s Prive couture show.
Asian styles and loose, silken silhouettes influenced the collection that warmed frozen guests with its bright colour palette.
Saturated oranges and golden reds evoked the sun of the Far East.
Shimmering sheer silks, plumed boas and fastidious embroideries made this an intricate and archetypally couture display.
It’s a shame that with such musings, only one Asian model was selected for the catwalk show.
ALEXIS MABILLE
It was a sublime collection for French designer Alexis Mabille, who colour-blocked the fairy tale princess.
Vivacious tulle-rich couture gowns rendered in vivid expanses of peacock blue, purple, cyclamen, flame red and teal green wowed the guests.
Crowns gave way to bridal and princess veils midway through the 24-piece display, but the contemporary colours ensured that none of the designs strayed into the saccharine.
There were plenty of great fashion ideas.
One of the fairy tale-esque looks in black tulle looked like the design was channelling a dark, unravelled royal — the couture equivalent of Lucifer.
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VETEMENTS
It’s couture but not as we know it.
The wholly unconventional house “Vetements” — French for “clothes” — has been making waves ever since it burst onto the Paris Fashion Week scene.
It’s a must-have brand and already a staple for self-respecting fashionistas.
Tuesday saw an edgy, almost anti-couture, display that featured mens’ and womens’ looks representing different profiles of people: the punk, the goth, the bride, the soccer hooligan, the portly middle-aged man and the cool business executive.
It was exuberant on the layering, and a leitmotif was the overly long flappy belts.
This detail that was also evoked in loose school ties and hanging handbag straps.
