简体中文
Seeing the runway at Lanvin inspired a variety of analogies - a restaurant with only a sous chef came to mind - especially as previous designer Alber Elbaz had a habit of offering around his own funky food and cookies rather than the house's nice-but-banal pink champagne.
Lanvin's runway missed Alber Elbaz's inspired touch
The most obvious change in the show itself was the lack of those witty, pretty, iconic or ironic pieces, perhaps jewellery announcing "Yes!" or "Mine" or so many other whimsical expressions of womanhood.
Then there was Alber's insistence that every show should have different elements - long, soft, aggressive, sweet - to accept the different characters and needs of women.
Whoever cut the square silver-grey suit that opened the show did give the impression that inside the stiff garment there was a woman with yearnings and needs. Everything was perfectly designed and well made, but you cannot fake the inner soul of an artist, any more than you can clone a great work of art and claim it has the same value as the original.
Fashion is "only" an applied art, so it is not required to carry bags of emotion inside a mannish check jacket worn with pleated chiffon skirt; nor is it when the palette switches from a golden wrap coat to calf-length ginger suede.
The whole point about emotion in clothing is that it is intangible. Alber had the talent to make something desirable. The team left behind showed technical prowess but no rush of blood.
What will be done to help these rudderless houses continue? It has to be recognised that the case of Gucci, with backstage designer Alessandro Michele waiting in the wings for a decade, is a fluke.
What high-level and important fashion houses need is a designer with the technical and emotional skills to make the magic of a great fashion moment happen.
(ELLE)
