Sportswear permeated the spring/summer 2016
womenswear collections of Chloe, Carven and Paco Rabanne on the Paris
catwalks
Thursday, while Balmain unashamedly celebrated sexy women.
Chloe mixed a long floaty skirt studded with small flowers and a two-colour
tracksuit top, or wide black pants with sleeveless t-shirts.
The label’s British artistic director Clare Waight Keller also paired
jogging pants with zipneck tops, and — for a more feminine look — matched
the same trousers with sleeveless tops or a white transparent blouse.
Over at Paco Rabanne, sportswear was thrown into the mix with lingerie,
best illustrated by a slipdress with a form of suspenders attached — the
effect was of a 1950s swimming costume.
Wide trousers were in evidence here too, complete with zipped pockets.
Paco
Rabanne’s lingerie was very much on show, with a bra highly visible under a
very low-cut little black dress.
Designer Julien Dossena also rolled out the biker look, with leather tops
and mini-dresses, but he returned to Paco Rabanne’s emblematic metallic
dresses in light and fluid styles.
At the helm since 2013, Frenchman Dossena has breathed new life into the
storied label founded by Paco Rabanne in the 1960s. Now owned by Catalan
group
Puig, it is due to open its first freestanding store in Paris in January,
near
to the Chanel store in the fashion heart of the French capital.
It marks a revival of fortunes for the label — after Paco Rabanne
himself
gave up the reins in 1999, it veered through a range of styles and
temporarily
shut down its fashion business before returning to the catwalks in 2011.
Designer duo Alexis Martial and Adrien Caillaudaud clearly had an
underwater adventure in mind for their second collection for Carven — the
diving suit inspired sleeveless tops and zipped jackets worn with
high-wasted
trousers.
“You find sport everywhere these days. We like to take small details and
tease them out to create something that is really wearable,” Martial said.
Trousers were already a large part of the duo’s first collection and
clearly they have become a fixture in the Carven stable, despite being
rarely
seen in the label’s offering before then.
“This is really a signature style that we want to put in place at
Carven,”
Caillaudaud said.
In a fresh-looking range, there were also plenty of mini-shorts,
mini-skirts and variations on the theme of striped men’s shirts and pleated
skirts.
At Balmain, Olivier Rousteing stayed loyal to his glamorous and
sophisticated style, with dresses both long and ultra-short, often cut close
to the body. Trousers, culottes and bra-tops were all designed to show off
curves.
In leather or wool, in black, white, beige and brown, the collection
fulfilled the 29-year-old designer’s wish to “play with a woman’s body, its
contours and its movement”. (Anne-Laure Mondesert, AFP)