Alexander McQueen RTW Fall 2013

Alexander McQueen RTW Fall 2013

Sarah Burton decided early on to forgo a full-scale show in favor of an intimate presentation due to the recent birth of her twins. She showed in an ornate salon of the Opéra Comique, her high-shine, modernist cube seating in serene contrast to the room’s froufrou murals and gilding. As for her theme, Burton is either prescient or fashion’s fastest worker, as who didn’t connect her theme, the sartorial trappings of “the high church,” to the papal conclave? Her show notes referenced “from communion gowns to cardinals’ robes.” (And with good reason. Have you ever noticed the laces on view during a procession of the cardinals? Amazing.) In five pairs of related looks, she presented a lavish feast in which pristine communicants in exquisite organdy lace gave way to sensual Swiss Guards and a twosome whose pearl-encrusted, cutaway habits suggested they were sent to the nunnery to atone for their sexual sins, (said atonement a work in progress, from the looks of things). She finished with a white-and-gold homage to the Virgin Queen, which referenced both Elizabeth I and various religious iconography.

Burton’s tiny grouping awed with its beauty and the craft on display. It also whetted the appetite for what commercial glories the showroom may hold. Almost at the end of a seemingly endless season, countless other designers could take a lesson.

Source:WWD

Chanel RTW Fall 2013

The living legend of Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel continues to grow, ever fascinating and in constant motion. We can’t keep up. We see it in the obvious global reach of the brand and in smaller, unexpected manifestations: in Loïc Prigent’s “Karl Lagerfeld se dessine,” currently running on the Arte station here, in which the designer tells his life story (or “parts of it,” he said during a preview) by doing on-the-spot illustrations at the filmmaker’s request; in the gaggle of Chanel-clad ladies — young, old, celebrity and merely rich — who on Tuesday morning exited the Meurice en route to the show like a tribe of transfixed pilgrims; in the most frenetic show entrance in Paris. And on the vast steps of the Grand Palais, there’s ample room for frenzy.

Coats and jackets were mostly loose and at times bulky, yet appealingly so, particularly A-shapes that had both structure and swing over skirts that followed a similar line. Dropped-torso dresses combined fabrics in horizontal blocks of three; long coats were cut away in front. As for those textures, Lagerfeld favored unapologetically winter-weight fabrics. These were always substantial and sometimes conversational — such as a remarkable black-and-white tweed covered completely in woolly 3-D flowers.

Yet there was nothing gentle about this single winter garden, or anything else in Lagerfeld’s lineup. These clothes worked the sturdy side of allure, and only a handful of evening pieces interrupted their face-the-elements bravado. Lagerfeld even gave his girls an aggressive edge with hardware-enhanced boots and gloves. Global domination is a tough pursuit. Karl wants his brigade armed and ready to flaunt Chanel’s mantle of chic.

Source:WWD