Paris Fashion Week: Nina Ricci SS10

Peter Copping’s first show for Nina Ricci received raving reviews. According to WWD, Copping delivered a buoyant premiere, by far the best collection of an assistant-turned-lead-designer in recent memory.

This show, Copping insisted, was about the house’s “signature codes” — bows, lingerie, lace. Copping debuted a take on overt femininity that commingled dreamlike romanticism with a sportswear comfort level. Working in a divine palette of barely there pastels, he showed pleasantly eccentric layerings — lamé over lace over chiffon over featherweight cashmere; cotton jersey over washed silk over tulle — that boasted more personality than much of spring’s omnipresent flou. Nor was it all about wafting silks as he worked in lovely leathers inset with lace.

Copping previously spent 12 years at Louis Vuitton, so a shared sensibility with Marc Jacobs is inevitable, said WWD. Another comparison is perhaps more crucial: that to his Ricci predecessor, Olivier Theyskens, whose gorgeous, very specific dazzlers went bust at retail. Much of Copping’s lineup was as intricate as it was girlish, raising the affordability issue. The balance of whimsy and good sense might prove just the prescription for reviving Nina Ricci from its recent ailments.

Source: WWD