Chainmail, Schiaparelli Pink and a Fuss over Fur

CHRISTIAN DIOR’S creative director Raf Simons brought a “garden of earthly delights” to Paris Fashion Week on Monday, slipping models into luxurious chainmail in a couture collection inspired by mediaeval art and fashion.
Sashaying down a lilac catwalk, models in flowing silk taffeta gowns inspired by the Belle Epoque and cowl-necked cloaks in deep purple and black reminiscent of the late Middle Ages, would not have been out of place in an episode of “Game of Thrones”.
Oscar-winning Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o was one of the stars attending Dior’s autumn-winter unveiling on the second day of the couture shows unique to Paris.
Simons said his collection was inspired by the Old Masters of Flemish painting and the age-old fusion of art, history and fashion.
“I was intrigued by the idea of forbidden fruit and what that meant now,” Simons explained.
“The idea of purity and innocence versus luxury and decadence and how that is encapsulated by the idea of Dior’s garden – no longer a flower garden but a sexual one.”
Draped gowns and historical sleeves, hand-painted patterns and coats resembling Middle Age mantles provided a “broad sweep” of fashion history.
Glittering chainmail peeking from beneath a short taffeta dress with sleeves cinched at the wrists, or placed over another as a gilet, put jewellery at the focus of the outfit.
Over a long billowing gown hanging delicately from the shoulders, a heavy gold chain dripped from the model’s neck.
Italian fashion legend Elsa Schiaparelli continued to haunt her eponymous brand a year after the long-dormant house made its comeback.
French designer Bertrand Guyon debuted his first collection for Schiaparelli in which he was inspired by a young Elsa, giving a nod to her signature patterns, colour – known as Schiaparelli pink – and friendship with Salvador Dali.
With necklines plunging to the navel, plaid dressed up with pink-splashed fur and bright colours throughout, the collection was entitled “Elsa’s Theatre” in a nod to the Parisian stage of the 1930’s.
Each of the 36 outfits with silhouettes Guyon described as “measured elegance” was named after a play from the period.
Actress Meg Ryan attended the show at the swanky Place Vendome, where Schiaparelli opened her couture house in 1935.
But it was a younger Elsa who inspired Guyon, who has designed for Valentino, Givenchy and Christian Lacroix.
“What interested me were these austere, simple, lesser-known silhouettes, which don’t immediately remind us of Elsa Schiaparelli,” he said of the woman who was one of fashion’s most prominent figures between the two world wars and became Coco Chanel’s biggest rival.
“She was probably quite a reserved woman, rather shy, but with a sense of theatre, of extravagance but always measured, chic.”
The collection provided several glimpses of Schiaparelli’s work – the trompe l’oeuil Tears print designed for her by Dali, the sun, stars and locks.
“Bertrand really captured the essence of Schiaparelli,” said former model and the house’s brand ambassador Farida Khelfa.
“We can see it in the clothes, the embroidery, the fur, the tartan, the cape, it is really the Schiaparellian universe.”
Earlier in the week, Russian designer Ulyana Sergeenko’s made first ever showing at Paris Fashion Week, with several of her models decked out in fur bonnets or a fur coat as the city sweltered in the heat.
The highlight of the week was scheduled to be German fashion legend Karl Lagerfeld’s collection celebrating his 50 years with Fendi, which has been hailed the “longest relationship between a designer and a fashion house”.
Yesterday’s show was being billed as entirely “haute fourrure” or couture fur – a material the luxury fashion brand has never shied away from.
French film icon and ardent animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot registered her disapproval by writing a letter to Choupette Lagerfeld, the designer’s pampered feline companion.
Bardot appealed to the cat – who has become famous with 48,000 Twitter followers – to “purr in the ear” of her master and save her “furry friends”.
But not even Choupette, whose every whim is usually catered to, was likely to stop the show going ahead.
Lagerfeld has often said that while he is very sympathetic to the anti-fur cause, doing away with the industry would cause a lot of people to lose their jobs.
“For me, as long as people eat meat and wear leather, I don’t get the message,” he told The New York Times in a recent interview, adding however that he preferred not to think about how the animals died.
The indefatigable Lagerfeld, 81, will also be presenting his collection for Chanel, the fashion house that is perhaps the most synonymous with Paris’s reputation for glamour and known for spectacular staging.
In total, some 30 designers are presenting Haute Couture shows, which are unique to the City of Light.
The designation is protected by French law and attributed exclusively by the ministry of industry to 14 houses whose clothes are entirely made by hand and tailored to each client.