Paris
To know how talented Phoebe Philo is, you only have to count the designers who copy her minimalist sportswear. In just a few seasons, she has made the Céline label recognizable by her almost stiff shapes and the gold chain straps on bags.
Her spring show on Sunday expanded on that strict look, with creamy tunics, long sleeveless vests and wide slouchier trousers in silk. She offered some poncho and tunic shapes in heavy cotton twill and shirting cotton — with raw edges or an exposed zipper — that pushed the notion of volume. More compelling were streamlined wrap skirts — in brown leather with a band-collar shirt in French blue cotton — and tank-style jumpsuits with a front zip.
But the collection needed more juice; all the creams felt anemically like a preseason offering. The real newness in the show were separates with blue and kelly-green stripes set in a grid pattern around a small orange-flecked print. Ms. Philo needs to cut loose in the mental sense, not with more volume.
At the very end of Yohji Yamamoto’s show, on a rainy Friday night, a spike-haired model mounted the catwalk in an inflated neon-yellow plastic skirt and a T-shirt with the words “This is Me” repeated in a column. She was followed by the graying designer.
Mr. Yamamoto’s generation of rebels — among them, the great Rei Kawakubo — make clothes that might seem tediously cerebral compared to the hyper-real, coldly disciplined designs of today’s stars. Mr. Yamamoto’s company was recently reorganized, and his last collection reflected the trauma. It looked old.
Yet it’s worth keeping in mind that Azzedine Alaïa and Karl Lagerfeld are doing some of their best work past age 70. Few designers cross generational lines as easily as Mr. Alaïa, whose shop in the Marais on Saturday received a steady flow of young women, the wife of a top photographer, and the model Yasmin Le Bon, who dropped by with her husband, Simon, who with Duran Duran was performing at a Fendi party on Sunday.
Indeed, maturity in fashion, as Hussein Chalayan suggested, “is knowing exactly what you need and doing it really well.” That is also good way to describe Mr. Yamamoto’s free-wheeling black dresses with asymmetrical cutting and draping, some worn with graphically patterned tights and layers in video-bright hues. French blue and cream are certainly flattering colors, but they are not colors for a dynamic world. “This Is Me” is Mr. Yamamoto saying he is committed to new ideas.
Next year, Mr. Chalayan will have three separate exhibitions in Paris, and so it’s not surprising that he wanted to refine some of his concepts from the late ’90s. “When you know how to do something, you do it better the second time,” he said. He has simplified many of his designs, which is a lot harder to do than loading them up.
Influenced by what Mr. Chalayan called the “surreal aspects of Japanese culture,” including the period of sakoku, or isolation, the collection was divided in several groups, under headings like “decentered,” “wrapping in transition,” and “floating body.” He made these terms visibly clear: a black wool waistcoat dress, worn over a sky-blue cotton sundress, draws your eye to the crinkled blue pleats released at the side by deep vents in the top dress; a light gray crepe satin shift was partly wrapped, like an obi, in white linen with delicious broderie Anglaise edging.
And because of Mr. Chalayan’s amazing technical gifts, a group of curving waistcoats and circle-cut shorts and tunics — in combinations of dark orange, fuchsia, tan and gray — actually do seem to float on the body. The clothes have the extra benefit of being wearable and fresh.
You could extract several meanings from Ms. Kawakubo’s collection for Comme des Garçons, and each would relate a psychological or social truth. The show opened with a model wearing a stole made of two coats joined at the hems, so that the sleeves dangled upside down. That’s a common sensation today. There were also jackets with two other jackets attached to the back, as if hanging from a peg below the neck.
Is fashion a burden? Is there another me contained in the spares? What do I say to my dry cleaner?
The three-in-one jackets are made so you can rotate them. A sleeveless dress with a bell-shaped skirt made for a striking silhouette with two dresses attached to the back and sides, but lifting it in the showroom I guessed it weighed 30 pounds. Still, this interpretation of doubleness was well done. A white nylon coat with admiralty details and an extra set of sleeves in heavy black PVC was not only accessible, but it was also a great look.
Junya Watanabe went to town with stripes. Sick of them already? He did them in so many cozy ways, in cotton jersey and with tailored styles like a long linen jacket or a transparent trench coat, that you may feel differently next spring.
Joan Jett wigs relayed the girl trouble at Jean Paul Gaultier. But while there were some wonderfully raunchy looks and colors, like a crunched black leather vest with hiked-up shorts and lace-covered jeans, the deviance feels a bit old hat.
(Source: www.nytimes.com )