Flamboyant showman Jean Paul Gaultier showed he
still knows how to party Wednesday with a fashion collection celebrating one
of the French capital’s mythic hang outs.
The 63-year-old designer’s latest haute collection burst onto the catwalk
with models sashaying through a replica of the swinging doors of Le Palace,
the long defunct club that once gathered artists, musicians and the
intelligentsia.
Big hair, skinny ties, swish, glamorous pyjamas and bell hop hats all
conjured up the feel of the hotspot’s late 1970s to early-1980s lifespan.
But the show didn’t just wallow in nostalgia for a lost era of hedonism, it
was also in memory of one of the club’s late doyennes.
“It’s an hommage to Edwige Belmore, the queen of the French punks and also
Le Palace’s bouncer from 1978-79 and 1983-84,” Gaultier told reporters after
the Paris Fashion Week show.
Belmore died last year aged 58 after a life in which she had been model,
muse and friend to the stars from Gaultier and Bianca Jagger to Andy Warhol
and Yves Saint Laurent.
“Edwige was an androgynous woman who could be masculine because of her
height and tattoos,” the designer said. “But at the same time she was very
feminine in black trousers, a Chanel jacket — it was a fake — with a bra
beneath it,” he added.
In the wake of the terror attacks that ravaged Paris in 2015, Gaultier also
offered a reminder of the need to go on living.
“Paris is still a party,” he said. “You have to go out, you must not stay
stuck at home. That’s the worst thing to do.”
Maison Margiela creative force John Galliano gave full rein to his famously
over-the-top imagination in a collection that was a tale of two dresses.
One was short, white and sober. The other was a blaze of blue striped
bankers’ shirts that had been shredded, though the odd intact sleeve dangled
here and there.
In a collection described by the house as “an exquisite collage”, colours
sprinted from solid black and brown to orange and red, with printed
patterns,
plaid, beading and crushed metallic looks.
Make-up evoking a lightning-bolt shape and spikey hair paid homage to David
Bowie. The British designer, who did not take a bow after the show, made
his
comeback last year in London more than four years after being fired by Dior
for drunken anti-Semitic comments at a Paris bar.
Over a soundtrack of rumbling drums and a howling beast, models at the Elie
Saab show emerged from a patch of Indian jungle, complete with giant waxy
leaves dangling from towering foliage.
Saab’s collection of sparkly, floor-length dresses looked fit for a
princess with the Lebanese designer’s flowing looks showing off plenty of
flesh. Footwear was not exempt from the flashy theme either, with several
models
sporting silver thick-soled boots. (Joshua Melvin, AFP)