Nicolas Ghesquière is not exactly known as a designer who does flounce but his super-hot Balenciaga collection featured flamenco ruffles. He wasn’t alone in choosing ruffles to decorate clothes this season. Both Givenchy and Chloé featured dresses or tops with frills around the neck and shoulders. Hedi Slimane’s Saint Laurent debut also had flounce, albeit with a 1970s note: tiered gypsy skirts, kaftans, capes and fringing. Basically, Stevie Nicks meets Kate Moss backstage at Glastonbury with a soupcon of Florence Welch.
Photograph: Chloé, Balenciaga and Givenchy on the catwalk. Credits: Rex Features, Getty; catwalking.com
There may be a lot of black-knocking about but several designers also played with sheer elements to give clothes movement and light. Dries van Noten delivered a beautiful show with an underlying grunge theme – sheer print trousers, wafting maxi lengths and skirts with top layers of sheer. Stella’s collection also featured see-through skirt hems, while Givenchy used gauzy transparent layers on tops. Haider Ackermann’s strong offering was softened with sheer polka-dot tops and fluid skirts floating behind trousers.
Photograph: Dior (left) and Stella McCartney on the catwalk. Credit: Getty
A stealth catwalk hue for next season. Less splashy than orange, green has had outings in London (Jonathan Saunders) and Milan (Gucci, Sportmax), while labels as diverse as Hermès and Chalayan in Paris also featured it. Roland Mouret had one of the best shades – rich, deep and thoroughly wearable. Meanwhile, Stella McCartney in a brilliant show featured crunchy Granny Smith hue. Note: Stella also hedged her bets and included punchy orange, while Kenzo paired the two together. Orange and green – the new monochrome?
Photograph: Hermes, Stella McCartney and Chanel on the catwalk. Credits: Getty; Reuters; EPA
Goodbye va-va-voom bodycon curve-hugging bandage dresses, hello slightly awkward lumpen sack shapes. At its best this means oversized tops with voluminous sleeves, as seen at Chloé, where pretty prints or clean white counterbalanced the shape. Also, clothing that sits away from the body is having a moment – Karl Lagerfeld opened Chanel with some wide jacket and wide skirt combos while looser above-the-knee dresses nailed the pretty sack look. Phoebe Philo at Céline has never been body-con: she showed bunchy layers, twisted knot-detail tops and super slouchy slacks.
Photograph: Céline, Chloé and Maison Martin Margiela on the catwalk. Credits: Reuters; Getty
In the battle of the Parisian power labels – Dior v Saint Laurent/Raf Simons v Hedi Slimane – one thing everyone agreed on was the relevance of trousers. Both designers opened their shows with riffs on black suiting. Simons’s was tux-like with a satin lapel. Slimane’s featured a strong-shouldered jacket softened by a pussycat-bow blouse and a wide-brim hat. These designers were not alone in setting their catwallk scene with trousers (see also Balenciaga and Ackermann), which says something: most likely that trousers are definitely a thing circa 2013.
Photograph: Balenciaga and Saint Laurent (centre) on the catwalk. Credit: Getty
Raf Simons said it backstage after Dior. Ghesquière said it with short lengths and bra tops. Elle’s Rebecca Lowthorpe said on Twitter that Roland Mouret’s collection was “minimalism meets scorching hot sporty sex”. On the Saint Laurent catwalk there were leather trousers that reeked of rock ’n’ roll sex, while in one of the label’s new ad images, a high-heeled foot teeters on a naked, tattooed male torso. Sex is thus very next season.
Photograph: Dior, Saint Laurent and Roland Mouret on the catwalk. Credit: Getty
To combat all the sex there were weird shoes. Céline’s fur ones are to Paris what Prada’s Japanese platforms were to Milan – a big talking point. Less weird but still not in the spindly-sandal-with-an-ankle-strap camp were the square laceup shoes at Balenciaga – they were definitely the right side of off. Comme des Garçons offered a sensible white hospital ward laceup with platform soles. The short block heel is also bubbling. British shoe whizz Nicholas Kirkwood is doing mainly 1/2-inch heels next season while Chanel featured short blocky heeled styles.
Photograph: Céline, Balenciaga and Stella McCartney on the catwalk. Credits: Reuters; Getty
More the feeling for a 1990s minimalism than an Olympic effect, sportiness rippled through certain Paris collections. The use of cycling shorts as a styling trick for short dresses was seen at Mugler, while Mouret put his with boxy-shouldered jackets. Raf Simons at Dior might not have been on a 90s vibe but he too finished his shortest ballgowns with black wool shorts, giving cocktail hour a new twist. Expect to see this look in a fashion shoot forthwith. Easier to do is the bomber jacket. Luckily, these were particularly fine at Stella McCartney and Giambattista Valli.
Photograph: Mugler, Roland Mouret and Dior on the catwalk. Credits: Rex Features; Getty
