Dior leads Paris fashion on a dance as Gucci goes for gags

Dior led Paris fashion week on a sensual dance
Monday with a spectacular show woven around a new modern dance piece by
choregrapher Sharon Eyal to kick off the nine-day extravaganza.
Icily restrained models brushed past writhing dancers in a performance
specially created by the acclaimed Israeli in a fog of mist and falling paper
petals.

Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri told AFP that using dance was “an act of
liberation” to break free from the catwalk corset.

Gucci — which quit Milan for the French capital to show its spring summer
collection — later got in on the act by taking over a Paris theatre and
having singer Jane Birkin, her back turned to most of the audience, sing her
1983 hit “Baby Alone in Babylone”.

With K-pop superstar Kai mobbed outside by fans, Gucci’s designer
Alessandro Michele served up an extra large helping of the oddball 1970s
kitsch which has made him such a hit with millennials.

Mickey Mouse manbags, wacky Y-fronts, sleeping mask shades, underpants on
the outside of slacks and medallions as big as mayoral chains are only a
taster of some of the wacky new looks fashion’s jester-in-chief pulled from
his wide-brimmed hat.

Gucci’s jokey bad taste

His playful, luxuriant bad taste could not be further from Chiuri’s earnest
elegance.

Chiuri said she wanted to replicate dance’s “naturalness… but also its
discipline” in a striking collection full of flesh tones and nifty headwear.
Pirouetting deftly from Martha Graham-style robes fit for Greek goddesses
to elongated tutus and hip-hop tank tops, the Italian blurred the lines
between ready-to-wear and haute couture.

Chiuri, a committed feminist and the first woman to lead the fabled French
house, said the show was “about liberty. Clothes are tied to the body and are
very personal.”

And she insisted that like each dancer, every look was individual. “There
are none of the sequences (of looks) you usually get in fashion shows, each
look is for each model.”

Channelling the ghosts of dance greats like Isadora Duncan and Pina Bausch,
Chiuri said she was trying to capture the “powerful explosion of the female
imagination”.

The show — in a specially built auditorium at the Longchamps race course
on the edge of Paris — was a hymn to the carnal and the fleshily human, she
told AFP.

“These days everything seems virtual but we do things by hand in our
workshops. All the floral printing, the tye dye is done by hand, it’s couture,
it’s not industrial.”

Misted up Instagram queens

With all the billowing dry ice, the designer also wanted to frustrate the
front row Instagram queens who spend their time snapping the shows rather than
looking at the clothes.

“People miss the moment because they are spending their time taking photos
with their phones. I wanted them to experience a show differently… to feel
it,” she added.

“It is dance and a fashion show, it is not a traditional catwalk experience
at all.”

Even so Chiuri — who is known for her sharp eye for accessories —
appeared to have hit the social media bullseye with her skin-tone square
front-window sun glasses and “CD” (for Christian Dior) belt buckles that were
being shared on Instagram within minutes.

Beret nice

The designer began with typically austere and ethereal monochrome black and
white tulle dresses before sending out a shimmering run of skin-tone looks
followed by muted greens, greys, ivory and navy blues.

Fishnet and embroidered dresses and tights ran through a sizeable slice of
the collection that was as also strong on classily muted florals, tye dye and
restrained ethnic edging.

The woman who has helped make the French beret hip again created a new
feather-light version for spring and summer as well as more tight-fitting
skull caps with British hat designer Stephen Jones, also wrapping her models
heads in two rounds of taupe-coloured ribbon.

Chiuri finished by giving the classic 1950s New Look Dior fitted jacket a
radical chic upgrade, matching it with combat trousers and even bleached denim
trousers.

The Dior designer was not the only Italian star on Monday.

Gucci’s decision to show in Paris rather than in Milan base hammered home
yet again how utterly dominant the French capital has become in the last few
years.

Young French debutant Simon Porte Jacquemus also turned heads with a breeze
collection of barely there beach chic dresses for those with the most
beautiful of bodies to show off.

Those that don’t took consolation in his tiny handbags, huge earrings and
equally enormous shoulder bags. (AFP)

Photo: Courtesy of Dior Press