PARIS, March 12: Stella McCartney, who has said she is only really interested in designing clothes that she or her friends would want to wear, was true to her word with her second collection for Chloe, shown here on Wednesday.There were plenty of hip frocks that would have suited her fragile prettiness, although she opted to take her bow on the catwalk in a Savile Row tailored pants suit.
There was a lot of tailoring too, since the daughter of rock legend Paul took private lessons to hone her skills in that department. The doting dad and mum were in the audience.
If her appointment was greeted at the time by the French fashion crowd, with some chauvinistic sour grapes, as yet another upstart Brit, this collection surely confirmed that she has the talent to pep up the image of Chloe and take it to a new generation.
The show, held in a tent at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, opened with tightly fitting satin slip dresses with spaghetti straps, deep slits at the back and applique s of stylised pansies,reminiscent of cheong-sams, in teal blue, violet and salmon pink. Alternative versions were diminutive camisole tops with hip hugging pants or pencil skirts.
A series of bias cut dresses in a diagonal graphic print in devore silk and satin rang the changes, with ruffled shawl collars, frilled hems or wispy inserts of ruffles falling into handkerchief points, managing to be sexy rather than sugary.
Pants suits were softly feminine, in classic English tweeds in pearl grey, enlivened with shocking pink lining or a bold pink stripe. Even the footwear had shocking pink soles.
For a harder-edged rock chick look, she showed leathers with low-slung belts covered in studs over hipster pants, biker's jackets covered in studs and second-skin dresses with two-way zips from top to bottom.
She wound up with delicate frocks in tulle constructed out of tiers of scallop-edging like fish scales, with mermaid's tail trains.
Alexander McQueen's show for Givenchy was also very feminine, featuring lots of beautifully cut1940s style double-breasted skirts and pants suits in flecked grey tweed, threaded with glitter for night-time glamour, reflecting his Savile Row experience. He also showed lots of supple leather, in oxblood red and electric blue, so skintight that models looked as if they had had to be poured in. Dresses with cap sleeves were worn with gauntlets to leave only an inch of bare flesh, and matching knee-high boots. For added luxury, here and there, jackets had huge fake-fur collars or fur trims like peplums or even fur sleeves.
Cocktail frocks and full length dresses were constructed from bands of toning fabric, like charcoal, silver and black, into bold geometric designs, with flesh-tone D Tulle panels inserted to give a Trompe L'oeil effect of nudity.
The only one which didn't work was where the see-through panel made it look as though the skirt was dropping off the model's hips - and she even walked tentatively down the runway as if she feared that could happen.
For drop-dead glamour there were liquidblack and midnight blue sequin sheaths, with squiggly lines in electric blue which caught in the laser-lighting, and silver Y Charleston frocks with fringed hemlines.
Ocimar Versolato restricted his entire collection for next winter to evening gowns: a mere 30 of them, which is quite restrained, most collections being twice that size. The only drawback was that it started more than an hour late, by which time many people had already given up and left.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
