Paris fashion: between ecology and miriñaque

[Inkriql]

From fantasy to austerity, Paris has shown that the traditional concept of trend is increasingly obsolete. In seven days of parades, Victorian tulles, crinolines and lace have been seen along with austere Americans, tweezers and pleated skirts. There are bourgeois women, fairy tales, gothic pharaohs, executive uniforms and even allusions to Las Meninas. With this panorama, it is impossible to predict the style that will triumph next spring. Although in times of viral clothes, surprise collaborations and shows that seem (and are) blockbusters, maybe that's the least.

Versailles 5.0. One of the most surprising trends that Fashion Week has traveled takes as a reference to Marie Antoinette and, in general, all the eighteenth-century clothing ampoule. He appears in Balenciaga, where Denma Gvasalia made a small wink at the end of his parade including several velvet dresses with monumental miriñaques; and in Rick Owens, who saw his techno-pears with pleated or latex cancans. J. W. Anderson, Loewe's creative director, looks back at the Netherlands and decorates his lace pieces with polisons that work as an evolution of the wing belts he launched a couple of years ago and that won so many successes. But undoubtedly the most literal in the historicist interpretation of this costume was Thom Browne who played to mix fabrics and some patterns of male tailoring with trinkets. As a visual exercise, this return to the corseted and constrained woman by a chiseled silhouette with metal structures is always effective because of the theatrical attire. But if this trend hides a deeper message - the fascination for the woman who sacrifices her freedom to fit a beauty canon - then it would be better not to try to move the past to the present.
A model in the Chanel fashion show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.
A model in the Chanel fashion show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. i-Images

The right bank of the Seine. Six months ago Hedi Slimane already predicted it with his criticized debut collection for Celine: the bourgeois aesthetic of the late seventies and early eighties had come to stay. Then, many bellowed against the recovery of a wardrobe that — defined by pearl necklaces and pleated skirts — brought a mentality and, why not say, a conservative ideology. With or without sociological and political connotations, the only certainty is that today this style is everywhere. Including the Parisian catwalk, where it was seen, declined in an American version, in the colorful collection of Altuzarra, and also in Chanel. Not surprisingly, that woman is the one Karl Lagerfeld wore for 40 years. Even the very avant-garde Y / Project played to deform and exaggerate that figure by proposing bags of XXL chains and two-color jackets with the deconstructed button, yes. That in 2019 you can be bourgeois and conceptual.

Other types of collaborations are possible. In the same week in which the firm Escada presented a capsule collection of 21 pieces made in collaboration with the singer Rita Ora and cackled with hype and saucer, the designer Dries Van Noten dynamited the rules of this new type of textile joint venture that so Useful has proven to be as a brand communication tool. Nothing was known that the Belgian had made his collection for next spring hand in hand with the teacher Christian Lacroix, removed from the catwalks for almost a decade. Only when, at the end of the parade, both went out to greet the sick public, the secret was revealed that the luxury industry did not stop talking during the entire Fashion Week. Noten said the next day at his Paris offices, five months ago he decided to write an email to Lacroix when he realized that his main source of inspiration for the collection was the work of the French. “I didn't want to pay tribute to him, I wanted to work with him. We had agreed only a couple of times, but I said 'let's see what happens' and he said yes. ” Without a marketing strategy behind or media presence objectives, they designed together for five months.

Bio scenarios With the exception of young and / or emerging firms (Marine Serre) or those that have always had sustainability at the center of their speech (Stella McCartney), almost no firm has spoken through its collections of climate apocalypse that tops the agenda current. Yes they have, however, implicitly. Those huge scenarios that always raise to turn the parades into media meat, and that are usually used and thrown away, are becoming reusable decorations. Gucci is the first firm to carry out a show with zero carbon footprint: the artificial airport that served as a set was built with recycled materials.