PARIS (AP) — Celebrities met designs replete with sparkle and tailoring at the start of Paris Couture Week Monday. Here are some highlights of the fall-winter 2016 collections including show reports from Dior, Versace and Schiaparelli:
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DION AT DIOR
Seldom seen at the Paris fashion shows, francophone superstar Celine Dion triggered media mayhem on arrival at Christian Dior’s couture atelier show Monday afternoon dressed in a demure Dior charcoal pantsuit.
The singer, who’s performing in France as part of her European tour, made an emotional return to the stage last month and was all smiles at the fall-winter couture show despite having endured a difficult year in which she lost both her husband and her brother.
The 48-year-old patiently posed for photos with fans before hanging off the bannister of Dior’s iconic atelier at 30 Avenue Montaigne, the venue for the show, to soak up the adulation and iridescent flashes.
The attention even eclipsed that of Johnny Halliday, France’s answer to Elvis, who also attended and had one screaming woman, in advanced years, trying to scale a barricade to get close.
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DIOR RETURNS TO THE ATELIER
It is twilight season for Christian Dior who have still not replaced lauded designer Raf Simons.
Fittingly, the theme of Monday’s show was a return to the atelier — both geographically and creatively — in a collection almost exclusively realized in black and white.
It was, so said the program notes, a color juxtaposition that the late Monsieur Dior himself loved.
But it was at heart a strong care-taker in a show that played it safe.
Interim designers Serge Ruffieux and Lucie Meier linked the monochrome to their personal creative elemental duality, masculine and feminine, in a show that riffed on menswear tailoring and draping, delivered on rather low-key sandal flats with reductive Cleopatra-style eye make-up.
There were experimentations with the archives in the 45 looks. They included modern variations on the New Look, the style that made Dior’s name in 1947 and reintroduced material lengths to European audiences following the restrictions of World War Two.
It made for a creative play in one loose, delicate Bar Jacket embroidered with sequins and silver thread and elsewhere on a skirt in ecru wool silk that had a creative dropped voluminous feel.
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VERSACE FRONT ROW
Season after season, Donatella Versace wields her enviable address book at Paris Fashion Week to add magic to the Versace brand. Sunday’s late show was testament to this, boasting actors Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Garner and model Naomi Campbell on the front row — kitted out, of course, in Versace.
All eyes were on Garner, who rocked an Atelier Versace silk cady dress from the fall 2016 collection with pale blue inserts and a high slit, as she chatted engagingly with her “Alias” co-star, Cooper, who looked relaxed in a black hooded bomber.
Campbell had the best look, though, revealing enviable inches of leg in a fully beaded Versace micro dress — that at times impeded her mobility — and a matching beaded bomber.
“It’s too short,” Campbell exclaimed at one point, as she tried to negotiate herself around the front row to chat with some acquaintances.
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VERSACE IS CAUGHT IN THE MOMENT
Atelier Versace experimented with dramatic form in its twisty, crisscrossed and draped ode to female empowerment.
Though this was a carefully planned spectacle and with models who walked more slowly than we’ve come to expect from Donatella — the aim of the designs, including silk gowns and pant looks, was to evoke spontaneity.
This was achieved with some success via draping and volume play with details of the clothes caught still in time.
Draped duch*esse satin was dramatically twisted, for instance, as if frozen in a moment.
The program notes called it “an exploration of form that runs through the collection.” It was seen again in creative twisted knots of leather in high heels that fell with purposeful nonchalance. At times, they perhaps seemed overly floppy.
Elsewhere, clusters of Swarovski crystals glistened on a cashmere coat with back draping.
“I love the elegance, sophistication and drama of today’s woman,” Versace said of her show.
The 34 looks were all of that, but could have perhaps benefited from a small shot of energy.
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SCHIAPARELLI’s CIRCUS SHOW
Bertrand Guyon’s third collection for Schiaparelli delved into the history of the storied house, drawing inspiration from the couturier’s influential Circus collection of 1938.
It lent itself well to a show full of sheen, shoulder and eccentricity.
Large surrealistic embroidered motifs sparkled with images of butterflies, circus balls, eyes, lips and one silver gown shimmered elegantly with a Ferris wheel set amid a funfair.
Elsa Schiaparelli, who died in 1973, famously mixed in to her designs references to her great surrealist friends who included Salvador Dali.
Guyon stayed close to this heritage.
Like a flamboyant circus costume, a midnight velvet column dress sported exquisite straight, stiff arms that stood up squarely above the model’s physical shoulder. It cut a unique silhouette against a sheer midriff and a gold bar covering the nipples.
But the real devil was in the back detail.
Like in the 30s, Schiaparelli’s heyday, backs were scooped, draped and accentuated in eveningwear. It was a simple, yet effective formula.
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Thomas Adamson can be followed at Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP
