Roland Mouret's venue, the Musee de l'Homme, was frankly perfectly-placed for me to snap this endearingly picture-postcard shot of la Tour Eiffel before hot-footing it back to blighty on the Eurostar. Our Paris fashion week project has now been updated with my final report from Mouret's presentation, so the only thing to do now is bid au revoir to our Paris soujourn and make a welcome return to London!
Designer Peter Dundas has been quietly beavering away at the establishment heart of Paris for over three seasons as design head of Revillion furs. Taking their presentations back to rather marvellous basics (a theme of the week if ever there was one), Revillion showed in the grand old sense, taking over a hotel particular in close to the Paris Opera for a series of tiny, single-room presentations. What better way, after all, to see such intricately, painstakingly worked pieces? Before the show, Dundas explained that the theme was, quite simply, Hip Hop. But this was haute hip hop, crafted with Revillion's unrivalled knowledge and expertise. What may have seemed overblown in a large presentation was afforded the true luxury of time and close examination by the twenty or so spectators crammed into every presentation: strips of fur were intricately knitted to give pieces a weightlessness, while more substantial coats were patchworked in big-cat or fatigue patterns in khakis or rococo shades of lilac, oyster and rose-beige. These jackets had a clever trick, going from hip-length to waist-length chubby with the flick of a zipped peplum. Dundas himself welcomed the change in pace, especially after his ball-busting debut for Emilio Pucci earlier this year. 'You can speak to the editors and really explain what you wanted to achieve' he said as he sat with audience members pre-show to talk about the clothes we were about to see (sometimes, the debunking of fashion's cloak and dagger secrecy is a welcome change!). But with a clear, concise and conveniently-timed message like Dundas', little explanation is really needed.
Maybe Galliano has spent his set budget on the special effects? His Russian Ark of Romany gypsies are parading out in a purple halo of billowing snow. I mean, I know the venue is a bit chilly but this is ridiculous!
We're finally in and the venue is... low-key, to say the least. Four rows of wooden seating, bare warehouse walls and only a black cloth for a catwalk. We can only wonder what's in store.
We're clustered in close-to-zero temperatures outside Galliano's venue, but things are still heating up. Maybe it's the breakneck schedule, or the fact the show should have started ten minutes ago, but the photographers are kicking up a storm outside.
I'm on my way to the penultimate show of our Paris fashion week, John Galliano, whose invite this season is a dinner-plate sized metallic silver disc etched with vaguely Oriental designs like a fretworked Moorish screen (or a rather exotic paper doily). Frankly fabulous, but a rather inconvenient ojet d'art to lug around half-a-dozen arrondisements a day...
Chris Moore and my good self have been working our fingers to the bone since the Alexander McQueen show ended not two hours ago, and our Paris fashion week project has now been updated with a full gallery of Chris' fabulous photographs and my review (and lo-fi real-time video) of this truly spectacular show.
...quite literally! Alexander McQueen's collection, titled 'The Horn of Plenty', will parade around this towering mound of steaming rubbish - all of it lovingly, and no doubt hygienically, recreated by the McQueen team.
It's always wonderful when seeing the clothes up close and personal surpasses the spectacle of the catwalk, and Stefano Pilati's wonderful, wearable new YSL collection was even better in flesh. Flesh, of course, was a big story - those opening leather looks, reminiscent of the blouson noir of Monsieur Saint Laurent's 1960 'Beat' collection, made a powerful statement even off the catwalk. Interestingly, the raised detail on some of those leather pockets and across the topstitched seams of that basic little black leather bodysuit were created by an insertion of chain, a motif picked up by leather-swathed chain necklaces and bracelets. The suits were stunning, crafted from basic grey flannel with minimal but surgically precise seaming and a rigorous attention to detail. That Saint Laurent shoulder I espoused last night? All cut, no padding, so everything felt and looked as slight, light and delicate as possible. The whole collection seemed sturdy, starchy but ultimately weightless - apart from those hefty brieze-block wedges that could easily double as offensive weaponry and kept everything resolutely down-to-earth.
X really does mark the spot at Jean Paul Gaultier, and after Saturday's X-rated, XXX 'xtravaganza of an 'xhibition (yes, I am aware that is at least one witless pun too many) I was interested how the clothes looked close-up and personal. The quality was, of course, impeccable - bands of organza and velvet seemed to be worked seamlessly into tight little crepe dresses, while the angular shoulders of Gaultier's signature tailored jackets were created by a band of material running up the back of the arm, folding over at the sleeve-head and tucking neatly into the armhole like origami. The nicest details of all, I thought, were the slits in narrow velvet and wool skirts, adjusted by means of concealed zips to reveal as little (or as much) as the wearer desired. X's were worked into everything, from darting insertions across the hearts of strict closed-neck day dresses, to transfer prints on jacket linings, to the triple-X superimposition of crossed belt-buckle, hatched applique and X-shaped folding on a taffeta dance frock. My favourite piece, however, was slightly less low-key: the ultimate heavy-metal biker jacket rendered in black chain-mail, edged in silver loops and studded with seriously tough-duty silver spikes. Perfect for the couture punk in us all.
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's invitations are always a colour-crammed poster-sized summary of his Technicolor aesthetic. This one is splashed with Muppets and slightly Frenchified fifties do-wop lyrics. I'm apprehensive, to say the least, as to the level of good taste and restraint we're about to see. But it's all in the name of fun, something we're surely in need of.
Here's my own wee homage to Stefano Pilati's tour de force showing for Yves Saint Laurent this evening: a truly wonderful way to finish today's coverage of the Paris shows. What's more, lucky me has a re-see rendezvous with that self-same collection booked for tomorrow morning!
We've seen drapery all over the place this season, but maybe Viktor and Rolf are about to push it to the nth degree (dangerous preemption!) Suspiciously untarnished white classical statuary set a Greco-Roman mood at the head of their Autumn/Winter 2009 runway.
Im never really sure what Stella McCartney's childish invites are meant to signify - other than a return to innocence and a lighthearted, frivolous joke that shouldn't have too much read into it. In itself, that's refreshing enough for fashion. This season, with her plastic yo-yo clutched firmly in hand, I'm on my way to her early early show now, but this time it's me that's running seriously late!
Frank Sinatra may love Paris even when it drizzles, but I can't help but wonder if he's been here when it pours - and with only a newspaper for cover. I was rather homesick at the truly Anglais downpour that slightly hampered my Paris jaunt today (five days in Paris without the home comforts of le Boots or le M&S Simply Food does that to a boy) thus the lack of my usual on-the-go jog-n-blog updates. Nevertheless all our shows today have now been fully updated in the ever-expanding SHOWstudio Paris Fashion Week project. More tomorrow.
Kaiser Karl is always at least two steps ahead of the game. While other designers are running-up last minute inspirational alterations to their final catwalk looks, Lagerfeld is so far in advance of even his up-to-the-next-minute self he's already shot his Autumn/Winter 2009 campaign images. Not only that, he furnishes us with a clutch of them in a neat neutral portfolio to preempt his show mere minutes away. He's probably already off designing next winter as we speak.
Having fully updated all the day's antics in our Paris Fashion Week project, I leave you with one of my favourite images from this frantic and frenetic fourth day: Jean-Paul Gaultier's dirt-splattered catwalk following his screaming, hair-pulling mud-wrestling catfight finale to the tune of 'Relax'. You couldn't make it up, really.
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Jean-Paul Gaultier's distinctly pro-pelt stance has never been shy or retiring: maybe that's why he gets the full force of PETA each end every season. The audience, meanwhile are herded like cattle into the venue by the most brusque of security cadres.
This bright, white illuminated sculpture marks the head of Sophia's catwalk. portents of frocks to come? Only she knows...
For those of you bemoaning the absence of me in our signature SHOWstudio video blogs this Paris Fashion Week I can only apologise but at the moment I am decidedly under the weather. Fret not, help is at hand (literally) in the form of Ann Demeulemeester's printed linen handkerchief invite. I just hope I don't need to blow my nose before her show at 16:30. As our Twitter followers will already know, the day's shows have kicked off already and our first review, of the Haider Ackermann collection, is online now. More to come later this afternoon.
Or rather, the 4am(!) hour, as I was somewhat tardy on dotting my i's and crossing my t's in today's jammed schedule. I'm off to get some shut-eye before Haider Ackermann, but our Paris Fashion Week project has been fully updated with reports on all our shows today. Enjoy!
Sinister arc lighting, an all black venue and intense, brain-boggling clothes. It can only be Maison Martin Margiela.
There wasn't even any fur in Westwood's show (none that I noticed anyway) but PETA were out in full force picketing the venue. Perhaps it is the oft fur-swaddled audience members who roused them this season?
Sadly, the Espace Eiffel it seems is no more - but today, Vivienne Westwood's show gives the more touristy of us (a.k.a. me) the chance to gawk at another great Paris landmark, la Place Vendome. This is the first of a veritable flurry of formula-one shows this afternoon/evening: next is Lanvin, then Maison Martin Margiela, Veronique Leroy and finally Yohji Yamamoto tonight. Hopefully, everything will go according to plan - or at least, close to schedule...
Our ardent Twitter followers may have noticed that, although I was 'Twittering' (and wittering) away from the AF Vandevorst show, the report didn't make it online last night. But take heart! It is now up in our Paris Fashion Week project for your perusal while I am busily preparing for our first show of today - Bernhard Willhelm - which is due to start in just a couple of hours.
At least, it is for me - but for the poor photographers, this is the somewhat gobsmacking eighth show of the day. Here, the ranks of snappers set up for the imminent start of Rick Owens' Autumn/Winter 2009 collection.
Our final show of the first day of Paris Fashion Week is Martine Sitbon's Rue du Mail. Named after the road where Sitbon's atelier is based, for Autumn/Winter Rue du Mail chooses to show intimately in-house. And in an unfamiliar city, at least there's no danger of mucking up the street names for this show.
It's always nice to see a familiar face in a foreign place - especially when that place is Paris and the face is the alway-fabulous Diane Pernet of www.ashadedviewonfashion.com
A rather dull image to start our Paris fashion week coverage, I'll give you that, but then again nothing much has happened yet. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from a 6am wake-up call (honestly) I'm plunging straight in at the deep end with today's first show - the eponymous womenswear line of Dior Homme designer Kris Van Assche.
