It was back to the future on the Paris catwalks Tuesday as Chanel cleverly
tweaked its back catalogue only for Saint Laurent to revive a look that
some thought best forgotten.
In what could be his last show for the label, designer Hedi Slimane — the
man credited with the skinny black jeans look and making grunge glam — was
judged to have given the brand “the finger” by parodying its founder Yves
Saint Laurent’s least glorious period.
The hugely-influential Women’s Wear Daily was scathing about his collection
which went hell for shiny snakeskin leather for late 1980s vamp, claiming
that
it was drawing on a time when “Yves Saint Laurent was well past his creative
prime”.
Slimane sent out a succession of very short one-shouldered dresses with
gigantic bows, belts and black angel or bat wings that would not have looked
out of place in “Miami Vice”. Their full-throttle glamour had some style
editors shifting awkwardly in their chairs, each of which carried a brass
plate onto which their names had been engraved.
Vogue, however, was complimentary, hailing “Slimane firing on full on
Eighties glam… clubland style” and particularly adoring a “cropped smoking
topped off a skintight sequin catsuit”. The verdict on social media was
mixed. While one style editor wryly described one dress as “Batwoman”, a
red heart-shaped fur coat provoked another fashion fan to tweet: “I can’t
believe Saint Laurent murdered Gossamer from Looney Tunes to make a coat”
— referring to the hairy red monster who is always trying to eat Bugs
Bunny.
“It must have been parody — as in giant middle-finger parody,” Bridget Foley
of Women’s Wear Daily wrote of the show staged late Monday in a Left
Bank mansion. “‘Hey,’ Hedi Slimane said with every look, ‘you who didn’t
love my
indie-druggie-grungy-disaffected LA youth routine these past four years. How
’bout Eighties camp couture?.. The parody didn’t play nicely.”
She was not a fan either of the exaggerated padded shoulders of his coats.
“Just how silly can a shoulder treatment get? Answer: Pretty silly.”
There was no such controversy at Chanel, where designer Karl Lagerfeld, who
was only hitting his stride in the eighties, continued his modernising riff
on
the brand’s core looks, with lots of boucle wool jackets, coats and skirts,
and piles of pearls and big necklaces.
The Kaiser, as Lagerfeld is known, created an old-fashioned couture salon
inside the French capital’s Grand Palais. His models strode down the aisles
in front of stars that included singer Pharrell Williams in riding hats
that had a little of Bertie Bassett about them.
While Coco Chanel loved to sport a boater, Lagerfeld told AFP that the
hats
were “something you could nearly wear on your bike and on your motorbike
because they can protect you.
“They are quite tough… but at the same time they have a frivolous note
with a piece of jewellery of a flower there,” he added.
A strong equestrian theme ran right through the collection with the hats
decorated with rosettes and black riding boots open at the ankles.
Despite the set evoking the nostalgia of an old couture show, Lagerfeld,
82, said there was nothing old school about his clothes.
“These dresses are not old couture, the collection has a more street
attitude,” he insisted.
The models were not tottering in high heels he said, because these
clothes
“were made for walking, like Nancy Sinatra’s song” — “These Boots Are Made
For Walking”. (AFP)
Photos: AFP