Yacht club
Fashion is often subject to a high seas takeover – and with fashion Instagram this summer an advert for yachting holidays, it’s no wonder that Paris SS17 had a nautical moment. There was a kind of sun-bleached, been-out-on-the-deck vibe to collections including Chloé and Loewe. The former added bowline knots to knitted dresses, and reworked naval bibs to suitable-for-work shirts. The latter – with JW Anderson involved – had more of a shipwrecked vibe, complete with patchwork, muslin, jute and luggage suitable for long journeys. Models walked to the soundtrack of a film of sea and oil barrels, courtesy of artist Magali Reus.
Lawn-chair prints
A 1970 portrait by William Eggleston of his distant relative Devoe Money was surely on the moodboard of brands including Balenciaga and Chloé. Money sits on a patterned floral couch wearing a floral dress. Turn the couch into a jacket and it could have walked down the catwalk at Balenciaga, where these kind of loud 70s florals, more typically at home on porch furniture than clothing, provided the Money shot for social media, on dresses and matching boots. Word has it that the image of stylist and current all-round style influencer Lotta Volkova in one of these dresses broke a certain corner of the internet.
Ain’t Laurent Without Yves
Designer Anthony Vaccarello, 36, had to follow Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent – Slimane got the revenues for the brand up to £839m in 2015, before exiting. Vaccarello’s plan, as revealed at the show on Tuesday night, was to go big with the house’s founder, Yves. The YSL logo, mostly absent during Slimane’s reign, was back: giant in neon outside the venue, and on stiletto heels in the show. The clothes also referenced Yves’s muse Paloma Picasso and a specific leather piece in the archive. Elsewhere, Balmain designer Olivier Rousteing used a colour palette worthy of Yves at his Moroccan villa, Jardin Majorelle
Winter in summer
.While the “See Now Buy Now” revolution was largely missing in Paris, designers acknowledged that times are changing by making collections ostensibly for spring/summer but without much thought to summer temperatures. Dries Van Noten had a trenchcoat drenched in jet, polo necks and lots of black. Balmain was dominated by knitwear albeit, in a Balmain way, slit up to the middle of most models’ thighs. And Lanvin had cardigans, jackets and pyjama shapes suitable for very glamorous hibernation. Overheating may come as standard in high fashion next summer.
Slogan chic
Minimalism has been in trouble for a while now and the final death knell sounded this season – with slogans taking over the catwalk, the absolute opposite of the blank, discreet, whispery world of tasteful knitwear and black trousers. A bag at Loewe proclaimed “See U Later” while dresses at Stella McCartney said “Thanks Girls”, both the kind of banality more familiar to WhatsApp groups than high fashion. It was left to Maria Grazia Chiuri, in her first collection at Christian Dior, to make a T-shirt statement that was guaranteed likes: “We Should All Be Feminists.”
Eighties OTT
80s party girl continues her seduction of style for spring. The catwalks were full of all her favourite things – metallics, leather, 10-denier tights, stilettos and anything ruched. Vacarello’s collection for Saint Laurent had a lot of this, as did Balenciaga, along with leather trenchcoats worthy of Cagney & Lacey and dresses out of Michelle Pfeiffer’s Tequila Sunrise wardrobe. Isabel Marant’s collection had the designer’s typical bobo favourites – padded jackets, floral prints, frilly sandals – but a short red metallic dress had the shot of sheen that nodded to the glamour decade. Expect to see on modern-day clothes horses such as Kendall Jenner in the coming months. No costume party necessary.
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