Diary of Paris Fashion Week, Day 7: JC de Castelbajac, Alena Akhmadullina, Junko Shimada, ES Orchestras
@ 9:57 pm March 4, 2008Filed under: Paris, Runway Shows
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PARIS, Mar 4, 2008 / FW/ — Day 7, Feb 29, was about childhood playfulness from JC Castebajac, Mother Russia from Alena Akhmadullina, Junko Shimada brings an array of stunning pieces on the runway, and the clean almost cool modern style by ES Orchestres.
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac
This season, Castelbajac was all about teen or childhood playfulness. And if there was any confusion about this he used the phrase “Smells like teen spirit” on one of his pieces just to make sure.
On a red runway dominated by big white polka dots, a playful collection walked the floor and reminded everyone of the things we once had in our toy box when we were young.
Ensembles included a full rubrics cube suit with matching rubrics cube purse, airplane hat and clown face top, Mini Mouse outfit with red dress, black sleeves and big yellow bow and ensembles reminiscent of the clothes one would buy for a doll.
As you can imagine the colors were bright using fully saturation red, yellow, green and blue. Hidden within this toy chest of fashion were several wearable pieces just to remind us Castelbajac has not forgotten his buying audience.
There was a white suit trimmed in black along the front buttons and collar with matching red trimmed leather purse and a black wool coat with red details which stopped just below the knee. The fashion was bold and the show was quite entertaining as all models came out at the end and danced to the music under spotlights.
Alena AkhmadullinaOne of the amazing things about fashion in Paris is that it draws talent from all over the world. One such designer is Alena Akhmadullina from Russia who this season used avian feather prints reminding us of the once dominant Soviet symbol, the two headed eagle.
Classic Russian but modern fur hats in chocolate brown, blue and black topped flowing feather print blouses and skirts trimmed in ostrich feathers. We were interested to see this collection and Alena’s movement in to enter western markets.
However after the showing, we feel her designs somewhat reflect the state of her homeland with one foot struggling to move forward and one foot still planted in the past.
It seems the trend for designers originating outside France this season was to minimize, or reduce to a whisper, the style of their homeland. This collection on the other hand was more obvious in it’s influence.
Junko Shimada
In the search for an ever increasing profit margin, many of the truly beautiful things from the past have been cast aside in lieu of faster produced items. Today when we open a new hardback book, the first thing you see behind the cover is a big white space.
This was not always the case. Before the turn of the century books were lined in printed papers using an endless array of beautiful, colorful and often whimsical patterns. Lucky for us, Junko Shimada has brought them back to life again in an array of stunning pieces this season.
The Junko Shimada runway show was all show and no runway using a series of golden paper walls set-up like a huge box in the center of the room. Models lined up behind each wall and as the music played they one by one burst through walking towards the media with cameras flashing away.
Beautiful prints using turquoise, pink, yellow and brown were combined with gold leather and sheer black solids to create close to the body ensembles the audience loved. Junko often pushes shoe design to new heights and this show was no exception.
This season the platforms had platforms for a truly two story shoe which gave one model a nearly ankle breaking fall to the floor. But, to steal a quote, she “made it work” after getting up and almost going down a second time. This was a diverse collection with many interesting pieces.
ES Orchestres
Held in the beautiful marble hall of La Sorbonne, ES Orchestres showed a collection of modern winter clothing to a full room. A small string ensemble playing a movement from Vilvaldi’s The Four Seasons accompanied models as they walked by viewers towards the media.
First down the runway were fit to the body black leather jackets, some double breasted and some single, with close to the thigh leather pants and square toed boots constructed with two zippers on each side. Following this were several dark navy blue and black wool jackets tied across the back and leather gloves going high past the elbow.
Two beautiful lambs wool coats, one in black and one in hot white stood out among this diverse but cohesive collection. The clean almost cool modern style seen in this offering by ES Orchestres was broken only by one or two hot blue tops printed with light geometric patterns and several pieces made in bright gold leather including an entire suit made of this material. The audience seemed pleased at the end of the presentation and applauded as the designer came out for a quick wave to conclude this show.
(Additional reporting by Errol Murray)
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I absolutely love the choice of colour in each piece. The style is amazing and has chic written effortlessly all over it. Gorgeous.