TWO INDEPENDENT women, Paris-based Irish designer Sharon Wauchob and the Belgian Ann Demeulemeester offered visions of modern dressing yesterday that were similar in spirit, but radically different in approach.
A new gentleness and sense of luxury wafted through Wauchob’s show notable for its exquisite fabrics, lavish use of fur and a more relaxed attitude to design.
Maybe motherhood has softened her style, but it showed in the way she let the ornate fabrics speak for themselves, such as a skirt of looped gold under a simple fur collared knit, or a pleated dress in russet prints floating over a black net underskirt.
Her signature rock’n’roll flourishes – skinny trousers and stilettos – kept the look streetwise.
The sharp contrast between soft, blow-away dresses in black and white silk and the darker, linear shapes of cropped tuxedoes and floor-length greatcoats showed in the finale. “I wanted to mix street with luxury and play with that difference,” the designer said.
“The challenge was to present femininity in a new way.” That showed in sexy, modern dresses in high-tech black lace, but not in a long cape in chunky dip-dyed fur.
Fur and feathers flew at Ann Demeulemeester’s show held in a chilly old convent where her punkish warrior women in laced black leather and biker boots had the look of modern hunter gatherers with Hells Angels aspirations. Quiver-like accessories and gauntlet gloves didn’t disguise the designer’s adroit monochrome handwriting in the tautly tailored jackets, dandyish waistcoats and silver chevron tunics. These are clothes for women with strong personalities, but the hairy Mongolian coats, some shot with fiery tints, looked dangerously feral rather than feminine.
A rundown garage in the Marais was the setting for a lavish theatrical spectacle from the Indian designer Manish Arora which opened with a magician releasing the first model, Houdini-like, from an empty steel cage. From then on it was a kaleidoscopic parade of iridescent sequins, metallic brocades, jewelled silks and ornate velvets. Even fox furs glittered with emerald eyes.
This exuberant extravaganza drew wild applause from an audience including American rapper Kanye West in the front row.