Chanel Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2015

The Chanel staged looked like Brasserie Gabrielle, a place where the foreign-born proprietor celebrates the innate Franco traditions of diversity, resulting in debate and most of all, style. Guests arrived to the Grand Palais, transformed into a vast brasserie with all polished wood, leather and brass atop an intricate faux-mosaic floor, yet another manifestation of the power-fashion fusion that is Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel.
There were senses of both classic Chanel and classicism upended. Suits, some with blouson jackets, were crafted from puffed squares of paper-thin leather; others, in tweedy plaids, featured skirts with deep bias borders. But Lagerfeld also made a big show of sportif, as in separates, Chanel-style: patterned sweaters and skirts under glittering parkas; sweater, skirt; cardigan layered over classic jacket and jeans; V-neck pullover stretched into a sweater gown.
There was even a riff on workwear: short and long takes on waiters’ aprons (tweed or embroidered; never white) tied on over pants. Into the mix, Lagerfeld incorporated young, fresh trapeze LBDs; frou in black and white; and, in a pret-meets-haute moment, a huge triangle coat in a plain gray wool and jeweled feathers.

Streetfashion Womenswear Paris FW2015, Day 6

What are you wearing during the fashion weeks? Your Burberry-boots, that vintage Dior or your latest Celine coat? Maybe we’ll spot you in Paris, Milan, New York or Amsterdam. During the fashion weeks we refresh our streetwear posts regularly. We don’t judge, we’re not the fashion-police, we just enjoy fashion and your own personal style. Next stop: Paris Fashion Week fall/winter 2015.

Saint Laurent Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2015

The Saint Laurent models who strode out on the catwalk looked like rock stars or rock-star groupies. Their mini crinis, cigarette pants with suspenders, and Siouxsie Sioux eye shadow placed the audience a few years further on from Hedi Slimane’s Sunset Strip-y Spring collection.

Slimane’s Saint Laurent woman is a bad girl, wearing leather leggings with cutouts all the way up the thighs; a black leather dress slit up to her undies, assuming she’s even bothered to wear any; and ripped and shredded tights above black leather ankle boots. The shoes were killer. Alongside the punky rock star stuff there were a good number of the kind of animal-print capes, navy peacoats, leather motorcycle jackets, and patchwork furs.

Stella McCartney Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2015

For fall, Stella McCartney went for pragmatic sensuality, especially as it applies to day clothes.
The result: an engaging sophistication permeated the collection in which she both pushed and relaxed her specific parameters of feminine-masculine plays and deftly manipulated classics. Thick-knit sweater dresses worked on a slant and half open at the side over languid underpinnings bared an arm, a shoulder, a glimpse of leg. Bustiers in lightweight wools delivered discreet allure, matching trousers and long-sleeved shirts.

McCartney loves her Savile Row references and here delivered them with new femininity. Even at her most streamlined, she incorporated ladylike flourish. Mannish tweeds turned a shade gentle but unfussy in coats and dresses cut lean through the waist. The graceful ease continued for evening as McCartney made seemingly casual use of lush metallic jacquards and brocades, incorporating swirling insets into ivory dresses for a sexy effect.

Streetfashion Womenswear Paris FW2015, Day 5

What are you wearing during the fashion weeks? Your Burberry-boots, that vintage Dior or your latest Celine coat? Maybe we’ll spot you in Paris, Milan, New York or Amsterdam. During the fashion weeks we refresh our streetwear posts regularly. We don’t judge, we’re not the fashion-police, we just enjoy fashion and your own personal style. Next stop: Paris Fashion Week fall/winter 2015.

Givenchy Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2015

Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy found his inspiration for fall in Victoriana and the Latin toreador. The models had their hair in tight, braided loops with exaggerated curls plastered onto cheeks and foreheads and the wore framing facial jewelry that replicated piercings and tattoos. They looked beautiful and fierce.
On Tisci’s runway the mix resulted in short, trim jackets over sleek pants which transitioned seamlessly to tailcoats, some with peplums or double cutaways; some piped in un-Brit scarlet. The tailoring was sensual but seldom arch, with considerable diversity within the sphere. For example, while most jackets veered sleek, a pair of jeweled stunners featured dropped shoulders and short, cocoon-like sleeves. Dresses came mostly in velvets – cut, printed, crushed – some corseted, some almost medieval in their fluid lines and Byzantine palette.

Kenzo Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2015

Humberto Leon and Carol Lim of Kenzo were inspired by the forest. Models were dressed in protective ponchos and capes in shadowy blue, deep purple and forest green — some in camouflage-style floral patterns spliced with contrasting stripes. Oversize shearling jackets were slung over pleated chiffon dresses in a nod to the volatile climate that has wrong-footed retailers in recent seasons.
The duo worked two main silhouettes: top-heavy layers over ample skirts and less-cluttered looks that paired structured jackets or draped jerseys with skirts and pants in satin, georgette or fil coupé, reminiscent of kimono fabrics.

Céline Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2015

Designer Phoebe Philo tried to explore the fine line between the idea of sexuality and sensuality and translated that into the Céline-style. She opened with a sweater with belled cuffs covering the hand over wide pants in what looked like embroidered crocheted lace. The fabric would recur in a jacket over pants and a dress, all chaste of silhouette but revealing of skin via random devoré windows. Philo also did a turn with lingerie, corsets undone and deconstructed over slipdresses and deliberately ill-fitting conical bras. Sweater dresses covered up in front flashed circular, open portholes in back.
Besides that there were shirts in charming animal prints over roomy skirts or loose plunging-neck onesies with polite underpinnings and enormous, colorful totes.

Streetfashion Womenswear Paris Fall 2015, Day 4

What are you wearing during the fashion weeks? Your Burberry-boots, that vintage Dior or your latest Celine coat? Maybe we’ll spot you in Paris, Milan, New York or Amsterdam. During the fashion weeks we refresh our streetwear posts regularly. We don’t judge, we’re not the fashion-police, we just enjoy fashion and your own personal style. Next stop: Paris Fashion Week fall/winter 2015.

Comme des Garcons Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2015

The fall-collection of Comme des Garcons was a mix of elaborate constructions, some soft, some structured, all out there, most in piles, drapes, wraps of laces in whites, blacks, a tinge or two in gold. Ridiculous by standard measure — sure; they always are. But even on Kawakubo’s lofty scale, a wonderment pervaded this collection. With her every choice, her fabrics, her configurations, the way she instructed her models, their points of connection, Kawakubo determined to make the audience feel the beauty and wistfulness of her strangely personal ceremony of loss and progress.

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