Paris fashion’s new rebel prince Demna Gvasalia took the venerable label
Balenciaga by the lapels Sunday and gave it an almighty yank in his debut
show for the brand.
The street-style iconoclast — a refugee who fled war-torn Georgia as a
teenager — frogmarched the fashion house so beloved of Jackie Kennedy and
the
crowned heads of Europe into a less reverential age.
Coats and jackets were pulled down off shoulders and he gave some of his
models bags you might do your discount Saturday shopping with.
With fashion royalty packing the front row for the most anticipated show of
Paris fashion week, Gvasalia, 34, pulled no punches.
He brought everything but a hoodie from the oversized street look he
pioneered at his achingly hip Paris brand Vetements, with 1980s-style
anoraks,
hacked about parkas and puffa jackets and classic French raincoats ripped
down
off the shoulder.
Yet in a deft nod to the Spanish house’s traditions, he gave the oversized
treatment to six classic Balenciaga tweed suits and dresses, pushing them
out
at the hips. The stern grey and brown ensembles, paired with glasses and
flat middle
hair partings, gave their models something of the air of East German Stasi
officers or Roald Dahl’s villainous headmistress from his classic children’s
book “Matilda”, Miss Agatha Trunchbull.
But there was lightness too in a series of 1980s-inspired dresses, some
spliced together from three different floral patterns, with barbershop
stripy
tights. Another blouse would not have looked out of place on Princess
Diana, the
decade’s royal style icon.
Massive oversized overcoats held out as if by Victorian hoops went down the
runway after rethought denim jackets and a man’s shirt worn with one side
out
overhanging a long skirt, another Vetements’ motif. The second-hand shop
chic continued with supersized skirts and sweaters teamed with white
platform boots and fur and leather coats with trainers.
And watch out next autumn too for sunglasses with gigantic chains.
First reactions to the show were warm, but not ecstatic. Women’s Wear Daily
said although the experiment had worked, it was “a promising debut, but hold
the canonization… The result was an interesting, often chic fusion of
couture and street references.”
The instant verdict of Christina Binkley of the Wall Street Journal on
Twitter was “traditional shapes (were) rethought, twisted, expanded by Demna
Gvasalia”. In his notes to the collection, Gvasalia insisted this was a
“reimaging” of
the work of the brand’s founder, Cristobel Balenciaga, “a translation, not a
reiteration. A new chapter.”
Meanwhile, Celine, the French label that is a perennial darling of the
fashion press, also went big, with beautifully cut oversized coats, jackets
and long feminine silhouettes.
Designer Phoebe Philo said her show that set mellow yellows, whites and
blues against black was about “finding the possibilities”, although many
critics saw a strong Japanese influence.
Women’s Wear Daily described it as a “study in beautiful clothes. Clothes
to live in, clothes to move in, clothes that signal to the world a highly
evolved taste level, and allow fashion indulgence without frivolity.”
(AFP)