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Frederic Molenac: Cyborg Chic
By: Karl Treacy
Photos by Gruber-FWD
Paris, Jul 12, 2002/ FWD/ --- Sometimes journalists forget that designers, especially
small ones, spend months working their fingers to the bone in order to create and finance
a collection.
Frederic Molenac won't let you forget that in a hurry.
With hip-hop dancers and some reckless vandalism thrown in for good measure,
Molenac's show at the Hotel Intercontinental was all about attitude.
Molenac's girl is the type that likes to turn heads and if she orders anything from this
collection, she surely will.
Don't expect to see Deeda Blair or Nan Kempner in the front row here.
Who exactly Molenac's clients might be, however, is rather a mystery.
The term "wearable" isn't easily applied to his work in a couture context, so it made sense
for him to show a small ready-to-wear selection before the couture presentation to prove
how commercial he can be.
Colors were acid green, acid pink, acid everything.
Molenac uses techno fabrics like neoprene and wide stretch net to produce a look that's more
street than salon.
It's pretty infuriating when you look long and hard to find something that might actually be
worn and come up with only a couple of pieces - like an orange chiffon gown with inventive
seaming and little circles of sequins as decoration, or a simple graphically printed wrapped
sheath hanging from a metal collar.
Even if more than a few of the looks -- with big, feathered headdresses -- were reminiscent
of John Galliano's spectacles at Dior, you have to be blown away by the work involved.
The way Molenac makes cyborg chic dramatically beautiful is stupendous.
They may be techno fabrics but they're treated with the same respect and technique as silk
faille or antique embellished lace.
A full-length back panel on a dress was unexpectedly embroidered in an intricate classical
pattern with little white shells.
Molenac may never be the next Oscar de la Renta when it comes to dressing bouffant ladies
who lunch, but he sure is talented.
Couture is providing him with a fun laboratory in which he's experimenting and developing
to the full.
Frederic Molenac
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