PFW Diary: Playing an old-fashioned game of peekaboo at Hussein Chalayan, Vionnet, Nina Ricci, Roland Mouret, and Isabel Marant
View the peekaboo on the runway »
Peekaboo. It’s probably the first game many of us ever played. And designers here in Paris are proposing that we play again, at least with our clothes. Panels of sheer and opaque, choppy layers, and tops and dresses with split sides have been strutting the catwalks here on day three of the Fall 2012 collections in Paris.
Hussein Chalayan showed a black shift with giant oval cutout over red crepe and a brown leather jacket sliced at the side to reveal another layer of the same skin. Thighs swished under sheer panels at Vionnet. Vests with abbreviated backs were belted over dresses at Roland Mouret. Today at Isabel Marant, suedes with laser-cut western motifs were shown.
And here is your quick jot of more top trends in the making:
1. Colour blocking in shoes, dresses, jackets, and even fur. 2. Romanticism in lingerie/bouclé mixes at Nina Ricci, rippling scarf folds at Mouret, and peasant mini-dresses at Marant. 3. Humour in space-invader prints at Balenciaga, and trapunto reindeer at Mouret, who paneled a gilded ballroom in wood planks. Algonquin Park comes to the edge of the Place Vendôme. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Bernadette Morra is the former editor-in-chief of FASHION magazine. She has been covering the Canadian and international fashion scenes for more than 30 years, first at The Toronto Star, then at FASHION. Over her long career Bernadette has interviewed many fashion world legends including Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford and Gianni Versace.