STERN (Germany), LE TELEGRAMME, LE PARISIEN, NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR, CLOSER (France)
Paris Fashion Week, a twice-a-year ode to luxury consumption, has been going on for several days. It is the best time of year for celebrity-watchers to catch a glimpse of Kate Moss, Kristen Stewart, Salma Hayek, Princess Charlene of Monaco or Valerie Trierweiler, “first girlfriend” of France.
Fashion journalists, department store buyers, bloggers and some of the world’s wealthiest and most beautiful women are jostling each other at the entrances to the famously exclusive showings and parties.
The most talked-about show took place Tuesday for Chanel: Karl Lagerfeld’s 13 white windmills, set up for his runway under the glass roof of the Grand Palais. His theme, complete with silver-and-blue floor coverings simulating solar cells, was renewable energy. But he does not claim to be “écolo,” according to the French newspaper Le Télégramme. “It’s a question of volume and lightness.”
Jean-Paul Gaultier presented a “joyful collection” inspired by the Eighties, according to Le Parisien. “Just because there is a crisis doesn’t mean you have to be gloomy and show sinister fashions,” Gaultier told a reporter. “In the 1980s, there were a lot of wild and crazy looks, while nowadays we seem to be moving towards clones, looking like everyone else, conformist.”
According to German magazine Stern, the most coveted invitation this week has been to the party for Hedi Slimane’s first collection for Yves Saint-Laurent, where he is now head designer. Slimane, one of the stars of Fashion Week, did not invite the New York Times fashion reporter to the showing… a slight attributed to a grudge Slimane holds against the reporter for something written in 2004.
It was not all up about one-upmanship. The 90-year-old founder of the Chloé brand, known for its “casual elegance,” received a long round of applause on Wednesday, reported Le Nouvel Observateur. But she whispered to a reporter that she thought the newest designer’s creations looked like “baby dolls.”
Curious about the music carefully chosen to accompany the models as they stalk down the runways? Here are 15 of the songs spun by various designers this year.
