PARIS, Oct 2, 2006 / FW / - The colonnade at Musée Galliera looked like a cloister when the show by AF Vandevorst started tonight as the first group of three models appeared, clad in the same white trench coats, their mouths totally covered by a thin band tied in the place of a lipstick. And the three of them had taken the veil!

In a world where religious fanatics try to impose their speech as the only allowed human sound, women are the first to be gagged, the first to suffer. And not only in the Roman Catholic Church, where contemplative nuns take willingly the vow of silence!

The looks immediately following the first group did confirm this impression, underlining the worldwide extension of this religious disease, fanaticism, by changing the nuns’ veils very progressively into hoods, and then into loose wraps worn over the hair and opening up on one side like a scarf in the breeze.

The materials used were all quite thin: light jerseys in shades of beige, cotton poplins, pleated muslin, accentuating the vulnerability of these determined silhouettes. The slightly stiffer fabrics used on light coats were shorter and worn on bare skin, enhancing the fragile aspect of the girls’ body.

As the music gradually changed from resolutely technical to slightly oriental, the purpose of the show became crystal clear: religion is fascinating, it can give you personality and style, but pushed to the extreme, it makes women mute, as did recall, at regular intervals, the recurring band over some models’ mouth.

Recalling the oriental world also means lingering into the voluptuously delicate essence of femininity. A very selective palette appeared progressively, which turned from white and desert tones to sensitive English porcelain pink or watercolour turquoise.

It revealed, in the last part, a very strong blue, approaching Majorelle’s famous favourite colour, as seen on the oriental painter’s famous garden walls in Marrakech. However, even in this vibrant blue tone, the veils can be back, completely covering the hair!

The thin bands then became black leather and were in this case used as belts, strategically tied just above the bosom or on the hips. These leather ribbon-belts were used to close the coats cleverly or ornament the dresses graphically, and were sometimes equipped with a hanging feather, cut in the same black leather to add to the graphic effect.

The music had by that time turned to the techno-oriental orchestration of a renaissance French song about the death of a rose, a French poem sung in its original language with an Arabic accent. The rose, another symbol of femininity, already present on these thoughtful designer’s invitation card!

The interpreter of the song, Natasha Atlas, a Moroccan native based now in London, underlines again the universal scope of the statement that the Vandervost couple has made here.

But this statement is shaped like a question rather than an assertion, just like their signature small red cross is stitched on the back of each piece they have conceived: in a discreet and yet unsettling manner.

When they uncover the flesh and seem to encourage women to more voluptuousness, they dare show how to reach the goal and denounce the possible pitfalls on the way in a very creative manner. They do not, however, indulge to display the full result of their quest…

But as roses inevitably blossom before they die, I am quite sure that these designers are taking their time only to show us in the future, and at its best, the fully bloomed flower of femininity.

Delicate, discreet, well built, meaningful, elaborately pure, this collection questions the problems raised by the beauty of a possible new spiritual age. Pray it comes! Pray we can tackle them!

AF Vandevorst

AF Vandevorst

AF Vandevorst

AF Vandevorst

AF Vandevorst

AF Vandevorst

AF Vandevorst

AF Vandevorst