Five trends to emerge from Paris Fashion Week
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Fashion
With Paris women's fashion week coming to a climax over the weekend, we pick out five of the big trends so far in the spring-summer collections:
No bras
Transparency. We demand it of our leaders and institutions. Well now it is coming to your wardrobe. See-through is one of the big looks of spring-summer, dominating the week's three big, headline-grabbing shows. Almost every dress in Maria Grazia Chiuri's debut at Dior was of gossamer lingerie tulle, while Anthony Vaccarello, toying with bad taste in his first show for Saint Laurent, sent out a line of bra-less sheer tops and a mono-boob dress that exposed one breast.
Bouchra Jarrar was more restrained and elegant in her debut for Lanvin. Even so at least two of her lingerie dresses would work as well in the bedroom as at a ball. Newbie Neith Nyer and older stagers Carven, Rochas, Y Project, Vionnet and John Galliano at Maison Margiela all got in on the act too, while Rihanna and ID made underwear outwear.
Gender flux
Androgynous, genderless fashion has been in the ascendant for some time, with transgender models more present on the runways as designers blur boundaries. This week Brazilian creator Francisco Terra used four trans models in his Neith Nyer show while others turned up across the catwalks from Y Project to Koche.
Julien Dossena at Paco Rabanne evoked gender flux in a show inspired by 1960s sexual liberation, which seemed partly to have also sprung from the loins of Woody Allen's 1972 film "Everything Always You Wanted to Know About Sex".
Off the shoulder
Despite last season's 1980s retro revival, designers are far from finished with resurrecting looks from the decade of big belts, big shoulders and even bigger hair. This time it is off-the-shoulder tops and dresses, not quite "Flashdance" but close, often pulled tight across the chest. The "one bare shoulder" look ran from floaty bohemian Chloe to Barbara Bui's shiny vinyl with variants turning up in Mugler, Wanda Nylon, Vionnet, Isabel Marant and Yohji Yamamoto shows.
It seems to be all Hedi Slimane's fault. He started the ball rolling with his final show for Saint Laurent, the now notorious love-it-or-hate-it 1980s super-bling "bat-wing" shoulders collection. Instead of turning on such excess, his successor Vaccarello has embraced the look, or the off-the-shoulder part at least. The sublime Haider Ackermann show Saturday was all shoulders too, bringing the focus to the hard work his models had done in the gym and pool.
Frills
Despite being the frivolity that dare not speak its name to fashion's dominant minimalist brigade, frills are back with a flourish. Prada lovers should look away now, but frills are breaking out all over the catwalk from Anne Sofie Madsen to Andrew GN, Alexis Mabille and Lanvin to name but a few.
Even rappers favourite label Off White went all frilly. The young Ukrainian brand Paskal used them ingeniously to punctuate its otherwise minimalist collection, making a summer bikini type top from one single frill. Japanese street avant gardist Junya Watanabe was also swept up by the trend, folding them into his jagged geometrical origami creations.
Turning Japanese
Japanese designers are a major part of Paris fashion week, with pioneers Kenzo, Yohji Yamamoto and Commes des Garcons now the godfathers of an ever-expanding brood that includes Undercover, Junya Watanabe and Anrealage. And beyond the global brands like Issey Miyake, the country's influence on foreign designers has rarely been as strong.
Japanese aesthetics and techniques are everywhere on the catwalk with three of the most exciting young talents Terra, Paule Ka's Alithia Spuri-Zampetti and Liselore Frowijn all citing trips to the country as the key to their collections. (AFP)
