Gaultier celebrates strong, seductive women
PARIS, France, July 7, 2010 (AFP) - "Perhaps it was pretentious,
but they say couture is like a Stradivarius, a bit aggressive,
a bit of a rebel, but a virtuoso," muses Jean-Paul
Gaultier at the end of his couture show for next autumn-winter
on Wednesday.
Jean Paul Gaultier celebrates Dita Von Teese's seducing
femininity Source:
AFP
For a finale his bride, in a trenchcoat, pulled out a violin and
after a brief warm up, struck up in a convincing mime to a tape of
the wedding march.
It was yet another collection celebrating women in full control of
their powers of seduction - like burlesque artiste Dita Von
Teese, who came down the catwalk in a powder pink corset boned in
black, watched admiringly by her companion Louis-Marie
de Castelbajac, sitting next to his designer father in the
front row.
"It's really just an excuse," explains Gaultier.
"Dita likes taking her clothes off to be better dressed."
He said his entire collection aimed to show the internal structure
of clothes like the corset worn by Dita.
The first spontaneous bursts of applause were for a long skirt in
tweed picked out with black and white ostrich feathers, which
looked airy despite the weight of the material.
Warm fabrics predominated, like a tantalisingly tactile fox stole
and a cognac leather suit with pockets fastened with purse
clasps.
A grey-blue pullover and pants ensemble had breasts enhanced by
black sable, reminiscent of the cones he created
for Madonna all those years ago. More fur emphasised the
model's derriere.
At Frank Sorbier's show, the models emerged from an artificial
mist onto a carpet strewn with autumn leaves, which set the
romantic, gently melancholic mood of the collection.
His opening number was a voluminous hooded cape, a patchwork of
animal pelts dyed in watery shades of violet and red, over a
crushed velvet antique gold dress with a bustier of mirrorwork held
together with gilt strings.
Next came a sober black pants suit with miniature silver
chainmail purses stitched onto the pockets and a ballerina's tutu
in beige silk organza topped by a corset bristling with raffia and
straw.
Only 16 models, but the collection could have been a personal
manifesto of Sorbier's commitment to haute couture on his own
terms, working independently from the global luxury
conglomerates.
Velvets handpainted by his wife Isabelle, plastic-treated cotton
gleaming like tarmac, dresses reconstructed from cut up guipure
lace, a Chinese quilted coat of hand-coloured black and white
postcard views, and the usual shredding and compressing of fabrics
that is Sorbier's hallmark were all part of the mix.
As ever he cannot resist the odd joke: a "Dada" papier mache dress
with a bodice of corrugated cardboard and wooden clothes pegs and
wine corks on the nipples and a "bonus track" corset top made up of
shiny sweet packets and biscuit boxes.
Last season it was exquisitely made corsets. This time Italian
designer Giovanni Bedin has covered up the underpinnings
with mini coat dresses for his second capsule couture collection
for Worth, part of a strategy to revive the historic fashion house
founded in Paris in 1858.
A ready-to-wear line is to follow in Milan and next month the house
perfume Je reviens is being relaunched.
Bedin's eight redingotes were worked in lavish lace and gold
filigree threadwork, mounted on padding over crinoline hoops, some
with skirts whooshed up like Elizabethan ruffs. Fastenings were
specially commissioned ornate buttons in the shape of gilded
snake's heads in enamel and precious stones.
The coquettish corsets remained hidden.
Mounted on tailor's dummies, waists looked impossibly narrow,
but Bedin insisted they could be worn, pointing to
discreet panels of stretch fabric at the sides.