Stories in thread and cloth

AMID A climate emergency, a possible pandemic, and all the great and small battles we all fight everyday, the world continued to spin for the designers of Paris. Two designers at the shows in the first week of March showed a nostalgia for days gone by, one designer opted for the arts as a palliative, while one maison refuses to go down without a fight.

BALMAIN
(Video of the fashion show can be seen at )

Olivier Rousteing’s FW 2020-2021 collection for Balmain opened with a line of navy pea coats. Another line showed something reminiscent of desert landscapes with beige and white capes, and the suggestion feels like a call to spend the season somewhere dry and hot. But then, the next few lines show a leaning towards classics of French design — think the safari suits by Yves Saint Laurent, combined with the beige and black piping, and the quilted details of Chanel. One can also see hints of Dior in the strong shoulders in suiting, or maybe in the solid, hard material (possibly plastic) draped on a model like fabric. Rich Baroque prints also dominate some other designs, perhaps reflective of some of the fashion capital’s sights. The whole collection reads like a love letter to the great names of Paris, albeit one that is less florid; colder, bolder, and more urgent (which can sometimes have an even better effect).

CELINE
(Video of the fashion show can be seen at )

Hedi Slimane’s Celine show was dedicated A Ma Mère (to my mother). The collection is just as much a love letter to the past of Paris as the Balmain show was, but this time with wider references. See, while Balmain’s show was about extolling the virtues of Paris as seen through design, Celine’s vision was a lot more mainstream. By this we mean that the collection is interpreted not through the lens of upper-class wearers, but someone more normal, a little more middle-class. The collection opened with a black shapeless dress that screamed bohemian chic in its flowy skirt, invisible bosom, and long sleeves. It’s accessorized with a necklace with a gold fringe that called the 1970s to mind, and paired with a bowler hat. It looks like what French New Wave cinema said was the type of girl every intellectual wanted to be, or have. Next came a swinging sequined rose gold dress, a black slim-cut men’s suit with a polka-dot foulard neck. We also saw a python-print shirtwaist dress, styled with a slim belt, chic but wild, as if a celebrity had stepped off a jet while off-duty. Feminine tuxedos are also key: we saw another slim-cut suit with a large floppy bow tie with a tuxedo shirt with blown-up ruffles. These pantsuits call back to the Le Smoking tuxedo for women by Yves Saint Laurent, born approximately in the period where Slimane’s mother might have worn them (Hedi Slimane was born in the late 1960s). It thus becomes an homage to bohemian Parisian chic in that period, which saw Youthquake, and the student riots of May ’68.

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(Video of the fashion show can be seen at )

Hermès opened with a collection of white and red coats appearing in a landscape reminiscent of the paintings of Piet Mondrian, had the artist made his primary-color blocks as trees and tubes. The collection of coats and layers follow the same clean lines as the paintings, and if they hadn’t been accented with leather and the bright pops of color, they would have had this too-cold, too-clinical chic. Several prints reflect other artworks of the same school of abstraction, thus awakening one’s own sensitivity to art. We do remember that the maison’s specialty is leather, so we saw full-length leather high-necked trenches, pleated leather skirts. We can only imagine the difficulty in treating a leather so it becomes almost as fluid as water, or stiff enough to hold pleats yet still move. We also like the clever little details such as what appears to be jacket lapels actually serving as closures meant to be belted shut.

DIOR
(Video of the fashion show can be seen at )

When Dior started in the postwar period, it dressed women very lavishly, trying to shake off the lean privations of war with rich fabrics and generous, corseted silhouettes. It was a bit of an affront to the humiliated Chanel (rumored to have collaborated with the Nazi enemy), who championed clean lines, ease of movement in dress, and her career was devoted to liberating women from the straitlaces of corsets. In the maison’s 69-year history, Maria Grazia Chiuri is the first woman to lead the important label. In her capacity, she seems to place the focus back on the women who wear the clothes. Her runway for her FW 2020-2021 collection was lit with lights spelling out slogans that may read like a woman’s innermost thoughts, when she feels that the male-dominated world turns against her: “Women’s love is unpaid labor,” “When women strike the world stops,” and “Consent.” In the same week that Ms. Chiuri presented her show, former Hollywood boss Harvey Weinstein was convicted of criminal sexual assault and rape in the third degree.

Ms. Chiuri opened her show with a black pantsuit with Dior’s signature Bar jacket. The Bar jacket, though masculine in design, flares at the hips seemingly to emphasize femininity. From the male gaze of her predecessors, it might show a hint of sex; but from Ms. Chiuri’s feminist perspective, it becomes a celebration of the female power of reproduction (or so we think). Neckties and decidedly masculine suit elements in strict black are also seen throughout the runway, as are shirtwaist dresses in checked prints that are profuse in this collection. White, loose fitting suits seemed to point back to the menocore trend of a few years back, which called to mind a nice retirement at the beach. There’s also a lot to think about in the context of dresses made with fringe, done as if in raw thread, as if they had been shredded before. As they moved down the runway, they predictably showed bits of skin from the threads hanging loosely about the model’s body, while the words “Consent,” in capital letters, floated above her. — Joseph L. Garcia