PARIS, Jan 25, 2007/ FW/ --- Even though Euterpe, Clio, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, Urania, and of course Calliope had all been summoned to a mystic gathering of a candlelit show Tuesday night, the antique Greek muses seem to have led Eymeric François on the wrong track.

The too theatrical staging accompanied live by a powerful young opera singer around nine muse-models and their dressers did not make up for a pseudo couture collection.

The fabrics were too cheap, the shapes too simple, the styling too dull to bring up any kind of magic.

The still young designer was nevertheless showing his fourteenth collection and seemed to be caught in a trap. Having intrigued the fashion circles in his beginnings with his elaborate work on zippers and later on, on pins, he seems to have lost on the way every inch of originality, not to mention his trademarks.

Is it for a lack of inspiration in the renewal of his successful concepts? Is it because François wants to step aside from the tradition of couture?

Among his codes, only his corsets remained yesterday and they were for the most part the mere replicas of the corsets seen many times in his previous seasons only embellished, as the show went along, with unembroidered and yet too heavy lace.

Each muse had two or three dressers to drape various fabrics and outfits around their corseted figures.

Silhouettes were then displaying here a caftan, there a cape, there a hood. These visible changes were meant to create on the whole, 24 different looks.

Although the changes were quick, they inevitably reminded the audience of children playing with dolls as they clothed them and reclothed them, and reclothed them again.

Heavy and cheap printed chiffons and mere squares of lace looked like they had been bought at the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul. On top of it all, Eymeric François has missed his theme, however announced in giant letters on his invite: Muses, failing to really differentiate them according to their functions.

Looking back on photos of his collection, the designer might have difficulties in identifying or justifying the muse of tragedy and the muse of astronomy for instance…

Only Calliope, who was his bride and his twenty-fifth look did display a corset of jewellery -that Eymeric François has co-designed with a fellow jeweller, which could remind vaguely the muse’s characteristics.

Maybe this collection should be seen as an encouragement to Turkey to become part of the European Union and remember the country’s Western heritage. Who knows?

Anyway, the staging with a live lyric singer was far too elaborate for a fashion show presenting such poor clothes. The looks certainly could not deserve to be called Haute Couture, not having even the basic features of ready-to-wear items, nor to be featured either in any respectable theatrical production.

Eymeric François

Eymeric François

Eymeric François

Eymeric François

Eymeric François

Eymeric François

Eymeric François