BEAUTY: Clothing--Misc. Paris Fashion Week SS '17

Here are a couple of miscellaneous moments that I liked from Paris Fashion Week...

Christophe Lemaire was apparently on the same wavelength as MP Massimo Piombo (here), Alexander McQueen (here), Craig Green (here), Casely-Hayford (here), and Astrid Anderson (here) because he showed a classic Indian kurta in shirting fabric and dark denim, both of which worked quite well.

And Wooyoungmi showed some great wide, flowing trousers...

http://www.lemaire.fr/
http://www.wooyoungmi.com/

Alrighty then, that about does it for fashion season. Thank you for your patience. We now return you to our regularly scheduled posts.

BEAUTY: Clothing--Thom Browne

A Thom Browne show is always a spectacle. And as his show is usually scheduled at the end of fashion week--and indeed fashion month--it means that magazine editors, show-goers, and fashion journalists are by that time a little more than burnt out. But this SS '17 Thom Browne show at Paris Fashion Week seemed to perk everyone up. Its lighthearted, comical theme made for a buoyant end to the season and had attendees smiling, giggling, and applauding with glee.

After many seasons of somber grey tones, whether Fall-Winter or Spring-Summer, Browne took inspiration this time from surfing and created a candy-colored collection of his classic tailored suit hybridized with board shorts and wet suits! The runway show started with a typical Thom Browne device: models entered the show space--a square of glittering black sand and monochrome palm trees--in neoprene suits reminiscent of wet suits with the exception of scale: these oversized bags contained each individual look. For his own shows as well as for the collections he creates for Moncler Gamme Bleu, Browne usually has the full compliment of models come out in some sort of covering only to be revealed one at a time during the show. To the accompaniment of models dressed as tropical birds and one single black shark circling the runway area, the models--white-faced with sunscreen, white bathing caps on their heads, and hands covered in white gloves--stripped out of their bags to show the delightful variations on the classic little grey suit Browne first designed some twelve years ago.

Jackets embellished with fabric flowers--a three dimensional version of the classic Hibiscus print found on board shorts--and jacquards featuring sharks (a pun on the little spouting whale seen on "preppy" shirts and trousers) and sunrises (or -sets) were a prelude to a set of hilarious one-pieces printed with trompe--l'œil three piece suits. For the finale, Browne brought out a cavalcade of singlets in wild florals and stripes with matching surf boards!

http://www.thombrowne.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Undercover

Random Dada-esque phrases and signifiers without a signified. This is what made Jun Takahashi’s Undercover Spring Summer '17 collection lookbook so interesting. But are the pieces meaningless--that is, do the words and graphics have meaning? Takahashi once said in an interview that “Clothes have meaning. Otherwise, it’s just cocktail dresses and bags — and that’s not interesting.” So we can be sure that although the phrases and images seem random (the second look below proudly proclaims "IMPROVISED CONCEPTS"), they are not. Perhaps they take on meaning when viewed? Our brains like to assign meaning in an otherwise confusing world.

These pieces end up feeling like they are covered with emblems or crests of teams, movements, countries, or cliques. But the individual texts seem to explode such an imposed order which is most likely Takahashi's subconscious motivation. A few versions of a pixelated Wicked Witch of the West along with slogans like "romanticism handled with discipline," "waiting for the Revolution," "I CAN SEE MORE THAN YOU CAN SEE," and "offence," "stability," and "attack" below images of an owl, seagull, and raven lend an unsettled feeling of subversion.

"In my work I want to express not something merely pretty or cute, but to find something behind it," says Takahashi.

http://www.undercoverism.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Balmain

If you are a regular reader of "Oh, By The Way," and have seen my commentaries on the fashion shows this season or seasons past, you might glean that I am not a fan of fashion that is luxe for the sake of luxe. But let me clarify: Would I turn down a butter-soft Giorgio Armani jacket? Hell to the no. Would I sniff at an exquisitely tailored Canali suit? Of course not. But my true interests lie in the artistic statement of clothing--the more unusual and eclectic, the better.

But Olivier Rousteing, Balmain's young creative director, somehow manages to produce luxe clothing within an artistic statement. Since he has taken over the venerable couture house in 2011, he has established a new, rich sense and exotic silhouette. And it is this silhouette that makes his pieces stand out and elevate the luxe brand to something beyond. Take a look at his laced and embellished references for his SS '17 collection shown at Paris Fashion Week: loose fitting Asian tops with sashes, draped Greek togas, and encrusted Roman centurion armor. For the latter, Rousteing studded garments with cabochons of malachite and turquoise (bottom row, left). Even when he is using pale blue denim, it still manages to look sumptuous. And please do take a moment to ogle the gorgeous ankle-covering Roman sandals (I covet the pair on the middle model, top row)...along with some lovely jewelry pieces like long gold fringe swinging from a bar of metal or stone, and chunky bracelets of chrysocolla.

https://www.balmain.com

BEAUTY: Clothing--Comme des Garçons

It is simply amazing to think that Rei Kawakubo has been designing clothing for her company Comme des Garçons for 43 years. Her oblique vision, her effortlessly and esoteric asymmetrical approach, her sculptural consideration of fabric, and her fearlessness in composing her garments has never wavered.

Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes” served as a catalyst for her most recent Spring Summer '17 collection at Paris Fashion Week. In that story, an Emperor of a kingdom gets hoodwinked by a pair of scammers into thinking that the clothing he has paid a fortune for is invisible, with the scammers flattering the Emperor into thinking that he looks fantastic. Of course the Emperor's subjects, fearing the wrath of their leader, go along with it all, also telling the Emperor he looks fantastic. This continues until a child, unfamiliar with the ways of mob mentality, announces that the Emperor is nude.

The idea of invisible clothing was clearly fascinating to Kawakubo and she marvelously used semi-transparent or clear rubber and plastic for a series of coats, capes, ponchos, and jackets. Models wore wigs plastered into Emperor's crowns (Kawakubo likes the idea of crowns and headpieces like the floral crowns she showed here, the animal ears she showed here, and the studded black leather crowns seen here) as they paraded not only clear pieces printed with the phrases "The King Is Naked," "Beauty Is In The Eye," and "It's My Fashion," but several suiting pieces made in conjunction with the house of Fornasetti, featuring the themes and variations on the 19th century engraving of the face of operatic soprano Lina Cavalieri made famous by founder Piero Fornasetti. Usually Kawakubo's themes come from incredibly disparate sources creating highly enigmatic collections, but this one seems to be quite "clear." (Sorry...)

http://www.comme-des-garcons.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Juun J.

Korean Modernist Juun J. likes to play with scale and at Paris Fashion Week, his SS '17 collection was blown up...and then duly shrunk down. Like fellow designers Rick Owens (here) and Demma Gvasalia at Balenciaga (here), he knows that coupling an inflated silhouette with a clinging piece creates tension. Good tension.

For this show, Juun J found inspiration in the G-suit, a garment with pressurized pouches that are inflatable with air or fluid, worn by fighter pilots and astronauts to enable them to withstand high forces of acceleration. Perhaps this idea of inflation and decompression accounts for the swing in scale and volume of the garments themselves...including an inventive nylon bomber jacket equipped with a built-in parachute!

The olive green color and lacings were the elements from the classic G-suit brought into Juun J's ultra-cool collection called Covered. The name of the collection on laced sweatshirts kicked off the show and then it made an appearance backward, along with other cryptic phrases: "Nothing stays covered," "Discover the covered," "Covered in mood," and most poetically, "Never get covered by another darkness. Illuminate your own light." Also of note is the double waistband. Other designers have employed this detail but I don't think I have seen it succeed as well as how Juun J shows it here: a higher khaki waistband peeks up over dress black or pinstripes, dress black peeks up over dark denim, and denim peeks up over olive drab. It's a great effect. Nothing stays covered...

http://www.juunj.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Rick Owens

No one does volume and shape the way Rick Owens does. In fact, it is possible that no one in fashion is doing anything like what Owens is doing.

Regular readers know of my admiration for the amazing Owens. He is not a "fashion designer," he is a sculptor (I mean that figuratively, but it can also be taken semi-literally with Owens recently launching his own product and furniture line). He has been true to his own aesthetic for many years now, unwavering in his singular vision which is a kind of minimalist, primal approach to what we as humans drape over our forms for protection and decoration.

For this SS '17 collection at Paris Fashion Week, he cited the work of legendary designer Madame Grès, best known for her floor-length draped Grecian goddess gowns and minimalistic draping techniques she created for her own house. Grès, born Germaine Émilie Krebs, was trained as a sculptress and regular readers know that one of the reasons I am drawn to fashion at this level is because it functions as sculpture. Fashion at this level is pure art and the shows are performance art.

So it is clear to see the wrapped and twisted Grecian forms from Madame Grès. At last season's Mastodon collection (seen here), Owens asked "How do I do volume in a men’s collection? Volume in a way that could pass." Mastodon was voluminous...bulky. Extreme. For this collection, titled Walrus, the volume has been tamed and made elegant. Where Grès created twists and rouched sections to compliment the body, Owens here uses similar devices to deconstruct the body, emphasizing muscle and tendon below the skin. It is at once a refined and raw statement.

Owens' own statement on the collection says:
THIS MEN’S SPRING COLLECTION IS TITLED ‘WALRUS’, AN EVOLUTION OF FALL’S COLLECTION NAME, ‘MASTODON’— EVOLUTION BEING THE KEY WORD HERE.
FASHION IS ALL ABOUT REFLECTING CHANGE AND CHANGES ARE HAPPENING. WE CAN FEAR CHANGE AND CLING TO THE SENTIMENTALLY FAMILIAR OR CHEERFULLY FLING OURSELVES INTO THE UNKNOWN. REMEMBER HOW THAT USED TO FEEL? I SUPPOSE I PROPOSE A LITTLE OF BOTH. I LIKE THINKING NEITHER IS WRONG.
JACKET LENGTHS ARE CROPPED WITH LENGTHENED SLEEVES TO CHANGE THE POSTURE AND LIFT THE TORSO UPWARDS WHILE PANTS SWIRL WITH VOLUME AND CASCADE, MELTING INTO THE GROUND. THESE CLOTHES ARE REACHING AND STRETCHING AND SWELLING AND FLOATING AND SWEEPING.

Like Balenciaga (here) and Juun J. (here) (as well as Bottega Veneta, here), Owens understands the power of contrast: tight, short cropped jackets, and fitted sequined pull overs set off the expansive, monumental trousers. And the set closed with some evening wear pieces that can be proudly worn to any formal function.

https://www.rickowens.eu