Balmain Spring/Summer 2016 ready-to-wear collection – Paris Fashion Week

01/10/201502/10/2015 | Syuzena Pitz

Creativ director Olivier Rousteing unveiled Balmain spring/summer 2016 ready-to wear collection.

And The Balmain Army was out in force this afternoon at Le Grand Hotel in Paris, where Olivier Rousteing informed in the show notes that this season would feature different elements from previous collections. The cast included models -IT Girls- of the moment like Kendall Jenner, Jourdan Dunn and Gigi Hadid.
His upcoming collaboration with H&M made him comb his own Balmain archives, reminding him of the wealth of material that was “the result of four years of hard work,” he said. Four years is a long time in his industry and as a result he deemed it time to introduce new ideas for spring and to broaden the Balmain DNA. that most prominently manifested in tiered ruffles (flounce is shaping up to be a big story next season): they cascaded on trousers, along sleeves, and bib-fronts adding a romantic femininity to the fierce sex appeal of the whip-stitching, fishnets and strong shoulders also out in force. This new found softness also rippled through via a pretty pastel palette – the nude tones, like the new silhouettes, all served to temper Balmain’s customary opulence.
Rousteing credited the power of the house’s social media presence as a vital ingredient to its success in moving forward, confident that all the dresses we saw this afternoon would be shared and shared again on various platforms very soon. .

Ann Demeulemeester Spring/Summer 2016 ready-to-wear collection – Paris Fashion Week

01/10/201502/10/2015 | Syuzena Pitz

Artistic director Sebastien Meunier said the collection was titled Rising and that his starting point was the angular unreality of Alberto Giacometti, then added: “It is about the extreme elegance of women; how tall, how bright, how mysterious they can be. I pushed them in a super-elegant, kinky, sadomasochist form.” Yet SM motifs speak of subjugation—albeit consensual—as well as power and so seem only queasily reconcilable with the runway. The oily chartreuse feathering on sleeves and coral-like clusters of quills were here thanks to Meunier’s collaboration on this collection with artist Kate MccGwire. The quilled pieces were simultaneously beautiful and sad, organic reductions into abstraction for the sake of it. The topstitched paneled black tailoring of which the facades veered from biker to tuxedo, the painstakingly ruched black leather pants, and the backless black tank tops–slash-waistcoats with a melee of obi-belt knotting at the navel, all this pieces were sophisticated. And for those who enjoy pain, this was not a pleasure to watch because it was fine.

Chloé Spring/Summer 2016 ready-to-wear collection – Paris Fashion Week

01/10/201501/10/2015 | Syuzena Pitz

Chloé threw something of a curveball today,01. October 2015. Instead of the wistful silhouettes came tracksuits, sporting stripes and carnival colours referencing a different dimension of the 70ies, the decade the house continues to reinvent so well. It’s not what you would immediately associate with the romantic Chloé girl, but as Clare Waight Keller explained after the show, this was about finding a new optimism.The usual lace slips were grounded with jogging bottoms; the signature cheesecloth maxi-dresses came not in cornflower blue and toffee hues but in sherbet shades; and bootcuts were replaced by easy, low-slung harem pants. It was relaxed and easy, as though Chloé’s girl was a girl on her gap year . Chloé unveiled us very youthful,really sophisticated high summer collection

Vionnet Spring/Summer 2016 ready-to-wear collection – Paris Fashion Week

01/10/201501/10/2015 | Syuzena Pitz

According to the press notes at the show, the new Vionnet collection was inspired by curves and by dancing. That’s the thing about semiotics, though: To each her own! An alternative reading of Goga Ashkenazi’s latest outing for the label was vestal virgins circa 2500 A.D. attending a postapocalyptic prom. That seemed as coherent a logic as any for this rather daffy group of clothes, what with the gartered bodysuits and sheer, floor-sweeping overskirts, plissé gowns worn with backpacks, and feral leathers and capes.

The plissé and the Grecian draping were a nod to Madeleine Vionnet, of course, and she would have had no trouble identifying her handwriting in a simple column dress of draped nude and ivory silk, or in the bone white draped frock with jewelry embellishment modeled at the close of the show by Saskia de Brauw. She might even have nodded in recognition at a micro-mini plissé dress—an ace look for a would-be modern Artemis. There were other nice pieces scattered throughout—the fabrics here were choice, and it was hard not to like most of them—but the button-down-plus-bubble-skirt and bodysuit-plus-anything propositions were a seriously hard sell. Ashkenazi appears to want to update the Vionnet formula, make it seem aggressively modern; the trouble with that is, Madeleine Vionnet’s ideas are timeless and look modern still. Witness the appeal of the simplest, most signature Vionnet looks here.

Rochas Spring/Summer 2016 ready-to-wear collection – Paris Fashion Week

01/10/2015 | Syuzena Pitz

Bold, decorative flashes of colour was the added ingredient that Rocha’s designer Alessandro Dell’Acqua used to set off the signature huge-volume styles that’s made the house such a hit in recent years.

All the colours of the rainbow were used in silky sheens in an oversized, double-breasted coat, or, after, on a 20ies shift dress — riffing off the codes of the house founded in 1925 by the late Marcel Rochas. Giant bows came in burnt sienna, black and white and graced funky trapeze silhouette gowns.Pointy stilettos came with a large tulle puff in colours that each time mirrored hues used in the rest of the outfit.

Rochas has sometimes been compared to couture -or demi-couture- and in Wednesday’s show it was clear why — an incredible gathered floor-length gown in pale oyster-white with a dropped hem possessed a ravishing swagger as the model moved.