Paris Spring/Summer 2012: Paco Rabanne, Issey Miyake, and Jean Paul Gaultier

This will be a post requiring minimal typing, as I managed to burn two of my fingers sometime around 4am on Sunday morning while on my way out of Glasgow's premiere shitty goth club. A sad cautionary tale to today's youth, indeed. So: pictures.

Paco Rabanne

If the metallic/iridescent look of some of these outfits looks familiar, it's for good reason: the new head designer at Paco Rabanne is Manish Arora, of my first post regarding Thor-themed couture.

1970s glasswear with eyeholes = the best kind of satellite dish/hat?

pics from Style.com, btw.

Do you know what I love? Scales. And armour. And clothing that looks like scales or armour. OK, I'm not gonna front: this was an excuse to post a picture of a Silurian. Note to anyone who doesn't watch Doctor Who and therefore doesn't know what a Silurian is: look at your life, look at your choices!

Paco Rabanne; Silurian; Paco Rabanne. AWESOME; AWESOME; AWESOME.

Speaking of Silurians, check out this super-awesome 19th-century Japanese print-style fanart of Madame Vastra and Jenny battling cybermen!

If all cocktail dresses could be this beautiful, I'd be satisfied.

Not entirely sure what the inspiration was for these outside "MORE FOIL NOW", but I think I like it?

Issey Miyake

Issey Miyake: one of the few designers who I can describe as "wearable" without making it sound like a snobbish euphemism for "boring".

I am powerless before the lure of a pantaloon, my friends.

Jean Paul Gaultier 

It's Gaultier, so there were heaps of lingerie-inspired looks in this show. There were also a lot of tattoos on show, whether real or in the form of printed body-stockings, and I think they worked pretty damn well when juxtaposed with all the vintage-style corsetry and girly frills.

There were a lot of great "alternative" models in this show.

Brilliant structure work on this outfit.

Don't worry, this is meant to be underwear.

I wear tattoo-patterned tights quite regularly, and therefore approve most heartily of all these motifs. :)

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Chinese steampunk action movie; superhero costumes; beautiful menswear; Julia Roberts, Evil Queen; catwalk makeup.

•  A new black-and-white silent film, set in the jazz age: The Artist (via The Oncoming Hope).

• Couture-style redesigns of X-Men costumes from artblog Project: Rooftop. (I love it when people link me to this kind of thing. Water-colour paintings of X-Men: YOU KNOW ME SO WELL.)
• In a similar vein: Superheroes in classic art, from How To Be A Retronaut. 
• This film looks STUNNING: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. The visual beauty of The Fall in what is described as "Sherlock Holmes meets Crouching Tiger", a Chinese steampunk story involving... well, I can't really tell aside from lots of awesome action sequences, a female martial-arts expert, some kind of super-sleuth, a dastardly plot, and dubstep music. So, basically... what is not to love?
•  Menswear crush: Hackett Autumn/Winter 2011 lookbook. SO MANY AWESOME SUITS!

• Another thing sent to me on Twitter: Jugend und Tolheit, a 1913 film about a woman who crossdresses and joins the army in order to be close to the man she loves. Ffff, I want to see this!
• BEAUTIFUL NONSENSE: Lily Collins and Julia Roberts as Snow White and the Evil Queen. These gowns are perfectly cartoonish. Also, is that one of Giles Deacon's Spring/Summer 2012 swan hats?
• Model-Morphosis. Photos of models with a slider to see their faces before and after catwalk makeup has been applied. I was actually surprised to see how little makeup they often seem to be wearing!

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Paris shows: Yohji Yamamoto, Stella McCartney, Rick Owens, and more.

Yohji Yamamoto

Thanks to Gwen Stefani, I can't see the name Yohji Yamamoto without thinking of the next lyric: "...hanging with the locals" from her somewhat entertaining, somewhat racially suspect Japan-themed solo album. With that out of the way, I can say: Yamamoto is reliably brilliant. He more or less ignores trends and goes on with what he does best: using vast quantities of fabric to swathe models of either gender in charcoal-scribble approximations of suits and ballgowns.

(from NYmag.com)

(All other pics are from style.com)

Rick Owens

This show included a lot of what I think of as "hospital scrubs chic": clean, non-figure-hugging clothing in neutral tones. Most of the time this look doesn't work for me, but Rick Owens is one of the ones who can managed it -- aggressively unsexy, "pure" outfits that nevertheless have none of the adorable-milkmaid-keeps-entire-body-tantalisingly-covered themes that I find so irritating. White smocks for adults -- possibly adults who work in a hospital in Gattaca.

 

Now is the winter of the silver welly.

This is what Buck Rogers wears for his drag act.

 A. F. Vandervorst

 

Stella McCartney

Generally I find Stella McCartney to be boring and overly conservative, but there were some parts of this season that really shone for me. For example, the delicate curlicue cut-outs and hems on what would otherwise have been dull slip-dresses and casual businesswear.

 

Balmain

Balmain: incredibly predictable. Short skirts, Western-influenced bolero jackets and a buttload of gold embroidery, as per all expectations. Balmain's gold minidresses were phenomenally successful last year and I can only assume that this season will do well off the back of that. And since the label's new head designer is a 25-year-old (!!) I'd say they're doing well. I mean, how often do you hire someone barely out of college and have things turn out looking more mature? He was clearly a good choice.

  

Actually these trousers kind of look like a costume from Dallas? Or maybe Dynasty. Whichever one it was where everyone put like 20lbs of gold on everything as a subtle indicator of how rich they were.

 Nina Ricci

I would wear this outfit in a SHOT.

Maison Martin Margiela

Most of this collection was quite frankly a bit ugly, but somehow (and yes, I am bracing myself to write the second half of his sentence)... with this outfit, Margiela found the correct balance between fake-carpet skirt, beige shirt and baffling plastic-sheeting torso wrap.

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Gareth Pugh and Thierry Mugler: Who needs trends when you're an intergalactic bug-queen?

There are some things that bypass the style and taste sections of my brain and go straight to whichever lobe gets excited by Captain Kirk dialogue or any film that includes swing-dancing. Which isn't to say that my love of gothy spacesuit/bug outfits is totally uncritical -- it's just not always rational or on-trend.

Thierry Mugler and Gareth Pugh: both labels I approve of for their habit of making things that look like they belong in an overbudgeted Philip K. Dick adaptation. Mugler is more established, now run by Nicola Formichetti (known for his work with Lady Gaga, although her only appearance this season was in a rather pointless video) but most famous for Thierry's own dramatic corset designs. Pugh is a young English designer, computer-literate enough -- unlike much of the fashion world -- to publicise his collections online using stylish videos like this rather than waiting for magazines to publish catwalk photos two months later. Which is a good thing, since his designs often need to be seen in motion to be properly appreciated, and may not appeal to the middle-aged fashion buyer market courted by, say, Chanel or Valentino.

This is probably obvious already, but I adore Gareth Pugh. Past works include: inflatable plastic-foil capes (N.B. watch that video, it's brilliant), black-and-white evil chessboard outfits, and a whole myriad of post-apocalyptic warrior/mutant/dominatrix costumes.

(All full-length images from Style.com)

Pugh and his collaborator, Ruth Hogden (creator of Pugh's badass cyberpunk-ish video art) couldn't seem to agree on what this show is about. Pugh says it was inspired by a 16th century diptych depicting Judith with the head of Holofernes, and Lucretia doing... IDK, something else virgin/whore-ish. According to Hogden the runway show tells the tale of an imprisoned woman finding inner strength and transforming  into an insectoid space-queen (or something).

This photo one was from NYmag.com!

I guess that what with this grid theme and the cage bodices/headgear early on, I can kind of understand what Hogden was getting at with her escaping-woman story?

 

THE INSECTOID QUEEN APPEARS.

 I do like to see the return of Pugh's eminently wearable plastic all-over head coverings. :D

 

Rating: 6/10 for Pugh-ish ridiculousness; 6/10 overall.

Mugler's Spring 2012 collection seemed to me like a toned-down sequel to the Gaga-modelled show last season. "Toned-down" isn't something I expect from Mugler, but this is a ready-to-wear show, and since this is only Formichetti's second season as head of house he may be playing it safe. My main criticism would be that there's no distinctive theme or standout item from this show, meaning that by Mugler standards it was more or less a nonentity.

More Tattooine chic than Darth Vader.

There's something to be said for this kind of calm precision, though.

Thierry Mugler's own designs used to emphasise tiny waists and extreme body-types, whereas Formichetti's jackets and dresses this season are neatly tailored and smooth, plus mostly unwearable by anyone who isn't bone thin. However, I can't find it in myself to criticise Formichetti for being elitist, because it wasn't as if the general populace were ever queueing up to wear Mugler's ridiculous fetish-lizard gowns fifteen years ago either.

 

Rating: 4/10 for Muglerishness; 6/10 overall. (7/10 if the exact same clothes had been produced by Calvin Klein, who is obsessed with neutral tones like this but has lost the ability create anything remotely interesting.)

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Viktor & Rolf, Spring 2012 RTW

I'm inclined to like Viktor & Rolf because they have a playful and innovative attitude towards structure, they don't shy away from trouser-suits, and Tilda Swinton permitted them to clothe her perfect form. However, their latest show was a disappointment, and not only in the sense that it strayed from expectations of the Viktor & Rolf aesthetic.

Rich, upholstery-style fabric and enormous, childish stitching: two great tastes that tastes great together? No. (Also, it's arguable that enormous, childish stitching is even a great taste. I think Vivienne Westwood  or Prada could probably pull it off, though.)

(all pics from Style.com)

 

There are at least three things going on there. Old-fashioned, rigid fabric used for a Chanel-ish skirt + blue ankle frills (??) + huge primary-colour lacing stitches + girly statement jacket with transparent cut-outs. Remove the jacket and this wouldn't look too bad, but the combination of the jacket and the skirt really doesn't work for me, especially colour-wise.

This one was my favourite look of the entire collection. In darker colours the curlicue motif looks more adult, and the coat is beautiful. Chic and pretty, although still not really in tune with Viktor and Rolf's past efforts.

 

That jacket works better with the patterned skirts, since at least this time they look like two items from the same show rather than a bunch of random clothing thrown together.

No. YOU ARE NOT MAKING COSTUMES FOR A CHILD'S PROM-THEMED BIRTHDAY PARTY. (N.B. I hope there is not actually such a thing as a prom-themed childrens' birthday party. That would be terrible. Embrace your Pocahontes- and Spiderman-themed parties before irony sets in and ruins everything!)

This gown looks like a student design. "Huge quantities of unsightly, cartoonishly huge lace-stitching" sounds like something a person thinks is a really great idea when they're maybe seventeen and/or have just recently begun to make clothes. My friend Zan took one look at this dress and described it as "flesh folds in a black exoskeleton chitin" but I think that gives it too much sexy Mugler-esque credit. Like a significant proportion of this show, it looked cheap. Viktor & Rolf gowns should not resemble something designed by someone running a Camden market stall that sells quirky handbags made from zips.

A Barbie dress designed by a 7-year-old and then carefully made lifesize by Viktor & Rolf. 

It would take me literally five minutes to construct this next "accessory", and that includes the time it'd take for me to source the ingredients from my sewing kit.

Last year Viktor & Rolf were making sci-fi outfits inspired by medieval knights. In 2004 their muse was Tilda Swinton. Now they're making frilled prom-dresses that Zoe Deschanel would probably reject on the grounds of being too twee. I'm not saying this was a terrible show. It wasn't even the worst show I've seen this season (excluding the dull ones, and I always exclude the dull ones), but there's a certain disappointment that comes from seeing a mediocre collection come from a designer that you'd trusted to produce good work.

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Gigola

For as long as I remember, my local arthouse cinema has been running what appears to be a never-ending LGBT film festival of dismal-looking movies about oppressed teenagers or Eastern Europeans declaiming tearfully at one another before suffering a tragicand/or dissatisfying end. But today I noticed an ad for this movie:

Stories about stylish and dangerous-looking people in suits are an immediate draw for me, but on top of this I found out that Gigola...

1. Is set in 1960s Paris.
2. It about a suit-wearing lesbian gigolo (I'm not 100% clear on the logistics of this, but I hope that it involves at least some implausible Shakespearean gender-bending).
3. Mostly takes place in what looks like the cabaret bar from Victor/Victoria, although admittedly most cabaret bars look the same.
4. Contains some kind of gambling/gun-crime related subplot.
5. Includes hand-kissing. (How can something that seems so suave in fiction almost always be so creepy in real life? Tragic.)

 

Guys, Gigola will have to be pretty awful for me not to love it. I tend not to like fiction about sex-work, since it's usually either weirdly romanticised (WTF, Pretty Woman?) or depressing, but this movie looks just unrealistic enough to brilliant. Although let's face it, I'm mainly in it for the costumes.

So dapper!

Hello, tailor, indeed.

This picture = the reason I even bothered to read the summary of this movie. How could I resist?

Look at how perfect her hair is!

This post is proof that I will watch anything if it provides me with a) beautifuly-cut suits, and b) crime. See also: my everlasting love of Inception. 

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Saturday afternoon videos.

Fashions of AD 2000 (from the perspective of the 1930s)

"... another designer goes so far as to believe that skirts will disappear entirely!"

I love retrofuturistic shit. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? I have seen it three times (conservative estimate). But you know what? This isn't even retrofuturistic. Instead of some artist's impression of New York where all the dogs are wearing spacesuits and the nuclear family travels to work in a streamlined monorail car, these fashion predictions are actually kind of accurate.  Shoes with cantilevered heels? Hello, Lady Gaga! I saw a girl wearing a highstreet version of these yesterday!

Pop-up fashion show, 1950s style

Finally. A way to keep my fringe fresh and bouncy when I go swimming with the gals!

The solution to bikini season.

If everyone still wore things like this to the beach, not only would they probably look better, but there would also be way fewer of those crazy-making "get your summer bikini body in just three weeks of intense juice-fasting and daily sit-ups!" articles. I'm not saying everyone should be more modest or anything like that... but I'd definitely prefer to wear one of those bathing costumes from the beginning of the video to a string bikini.

Maybe not all this elasticated girdle stuff, though. :/

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