Chic ‘aristopunk’
Delicious contrast
PARIS, Jan 18, (AP): The traveling fashion press bid “ciao” to Milan and said “bonjour” to Paris on Wednesday as another week of menswear mania that will include 50 shows, endless parties and million-dollar deals got underway in the French capital.
Powerhouse Valentino unveiled its couture-infused fallwinter creations from designer Pierpaolo Piccioli on Day 1, which also featured collections by lesser-known houses such as Julien David and Facetasm.
Here are the some highlights:
Valentino
The message from Piccioli’s accomplished menswear show was simple: All rich kids should have a dose of rebellion.
The now-solo Valentino designer, whose designs have gone from strength to strength, channeled the concept of “Aristopunk.”
With delicious contrast, white sneakers graced the luxuriant carpets inside the magnificent, 18th century-style Hotel Salomon de Rothschild. This was served up with bubble jackets in white and black and high zipped collars as acid yellow, neon pink and vivid blue added a dash of bold fun.
But there was much artistry at work, too, in the 48 dark, masculine and generally fitted looks. The beauty was captured best in the dandy-like swagger produced by a billowing shin-length coat style.
Panels separated the lower segments and as the models walked by, they fluttered stylishly like weighty, hanging petals.
Julien David
That fashion is a dog-eat-dog world was perhaps the message from French designer Julien David, whose models for fall-winter previews all donned comic canine masks.
The looks — featuring huskies, Dalmatians, poodles and bulldogs — endowed David’s 22 designs with a sense of surreal fun and dog-style relaxation. The models posed during Wednesday’s ‘show’ sitting on chairs next to tables decorated with cards games and dominos, or slouched on a couch, as fashion insiders chuckled and snapped their cameras.
It was clever stage-managing by David, one of the rising stars in Paris menswear, to highlight his signature casual style. His clothes — baggy denims with turn-ups that revealed pulled-up wooly socks and white-laced sneakers — were just that.
Christophe Lemaire
Wearable, fashion-forward and minimalist. That’s the successful mantra employed by former-Hermes designer Christophe Lemaire and it was used with aplomb for his stylish fall-winter show brimming with clean lines and loose silhouettes.
There were nods to the utilitarian trend with boots, buttons, big flat pockets and boxy workers’ jackets. And a strong masculine air was evoked, in this 40-piece collection, thanks to its autumnal color palette of smoke, slate gray, black, drab and golden brown.
Facetasm
Facetasm took the on-trend worker style as its starting point for a fall-winter collection that was ultimately hard to pin down.
Japanese-style thick denim fabric was given a great scrunched-up effect in a round-shouldered bomber with oversize proportions and baggy jeans. It was twinned with a black hoodie, which had a raw street-wear vibe that resonated with the show’s warehouse venue and its wrought-iron columns.