Fall 2010 Paris Fashion Week

>> For the six days leading up to the Chanel Fall 2010 show, Karl Lagerfeld had the thirty-five person team who sculpted The Ice Hotel in Sweden brought in to carve a 265-ton iceberg, also imported from Sweden, in the middle of the Grand Palais.  The room was chilled to 25 degrees Fahrenheit, and the iceberg was hidden from the audience under a large wooden box that mechanically rose when the show started.

Four models — Brad Kroenig, Baptiste Giabiconi, Abbey Lee Kershaw, and Freja Beha Erichsen (the latter two who are reportedly set to appear in the Chanel Fall 2010 campaign) — in furry yeti suits opened the display, "milling about in a daze" before dispersing, and giving way to a train of models sloshing through water from the melting iceberg; some even left shoes which came loose behind in their wake.

“Global warming is the issue of our times. Fashion has to address it,” Lagerfeld said afterward.  And fur was everywhere — boots, skirts, pants, bags — but all faux.  Karl said he went with faux fur for two reasons: first, Fendi does the best real furs and he doesn't want to compete, and second: “Technical advances are so perfect you can hardly tell fake fur from the real thing. Fake is not chic — we have got a new Chanel tweed to stop copies — but fake fur is.”
*image: source

>> With the flashing lights and soundtrack of a thunderstorm, plus thumping hoofbeats and the braying of a horse, the Dior show was off this morning. The theme?  "The Seduction of the Libertine," based on the 17th century Earl of Rochester — who John Galliano came out dressed like at the end, in poet's shirt and jodhpurs tucked into riding boots — and his courtesans.

“This season Dior takes up the heroic spirit of French romanticism and Mr. Dior’s beloved English riding tweeds. I was inspired by the drape, line and cut as well as the characters of the era. I wanted to create a new luxury, and new lover, in the romance of the seductive libertine of Dior,” Galliano explained backstage.

Anna Dello Russo took in the cape coats and printed chiffon dresses stomping by on Coco Rocha, Jessica Stam, Chanel Iman, Ana Beatriz Barros, and Karlie Kloss while sitting on the floor, and the show appeared to mark Anna Wintour's last this Paris Fashion Week — she was nowhere to be seen later at Lanvin.

>> With Prince on the soundtrack, Christophe Decarnin sent out a river of gold: on sequins, brocade, slit-up-to-there dresses, fringe, and even those skin-tight pants.  Cathy Horyn Tweeted, "Electric gold pinstripes on a Balmain pantsuit made me think, I'm sorry, of the Eiffel."

Decarnin is still stuck on big shoulders, but he did add in trouser suits with pussy-bow blouses and fur jackets this time around.  Backstage, he explained:  “I started from a standpoint of classical French couture, like a Cardin jacket and trousers from 1970; all very elegant — and then I moved to the Court of Versailles . . . This is pretty good substitute for Versailles, non?"

>> Bianca Balti opened in what turned out to be a very '60s-drawn Rochas collection by Marco Zanini. Teased flippy hair, shift dresses, exaggerated pointy collars, and acid hues were punctuated by leopard print and gold lame on bags and the elbow shields of cardigans. Zanini said he was inspired by a Goldie Hawn movie, Cactus Flower — perhaps explaining the floral bow motif carrying throughout. The finale, a crowd of models showered in a psychedelic mix of colored lights.

>> Dries van Noten took fashion show security to a new level today in Paris: everyone's bags had to be scanned, airport-style, before entering the show venue, which just so happened to be the Salle de Fetes (the mayor's party room), in Paris' historic City Hall.

Against the setting's gilded, painted ceiling and decadent hanging chandeliers, van Noten sent out an army of military green, leopard print, hand-painted silks, tops cut off and frayed at the shoulders, and hourglass-shaped coats to a Malcolm McLaren-curated soundtrack. "We started with '50s and '60s couture, the beautiful shapes, and also looked at other garments, menswear, military uniforms and mixed them together in a rebellious way," the designer said backstage. "You get the same elegance, but in a really different way." Jane Birkin, in jeans and faded Western shirt, and Jared Leto were both front row taking it in.