PFW: One man's reference is another man's copy

Lanvin S/S '15; image source: style.com

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That is a quote from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities which perfectly describes what we saw yesterday in Paris over a span of ten hours. But, being the optimist that I am, I shall begin with the best of times: Lanvin's Alber Elbaz has, once again, presented a highly successful collection.

For the house's 125th anniversary, Mr. Elbaz put together a cast of models that looked - quite literally - like a dream. 80s supermodel Violetta Sanchez opened the show dressed in a one-sleeve jersey T-shirt dress that showed just enough nipple and stomach definition to make her appear even more attractive than she already is. Followed by icons Amber Valetta and Natasa Vojnovic wearing similar gowns with a matching sense of effortless-ness, it became clear to the audience that this was going to be a celebration of the classic.

The show continued in that direction - more light-weight jersey dresses provided room for move-ment, silk crepe minis in black and white hugged the girls' bodies, silver mesh tank tops evoked a certain perversion that Lanvin has been long due to show and delicate lace and floral-printed pieces that took stage towards the end of the show provi-ded a sigh of relief with the younger clientele who is into the type of luxury the house has been doing for the past couple of seasons. Another moment worth noting is the immaculate use of cobalt blue and shades of orange which undoubtedly point at Mr. Elbaz's iconic S/S '08 show for the brand.

But before Lanvin's 8 p.m. slot on the Paris Fashion Week schedule things weren't looking so bright. The day opened with Roland Mouret's show for his namesake brand which had its glory moments like the simple pieces in shamrock green styled with crisp white tops, but the rest came across as unneces-sarily complicated and unflattering. Another low was Peter Copping's story for Nina Ricci which was heavily influenced by Dior's double-faced fabric in pink and orange, houndstooth print and laser-cuts,
as well as Prada's S/S '09 show in terms of the crinkled satin duchesse and several silhouettes.

Balmain S/S '15; image source: uhzo.com

But the biggest flop of the day had to be Balmain's Las Vegas show. Backstage, the designer claimed that he was inspired by a paparazzi photo of Rihanna wearing one of his designs - however, the collection had Kim Kardashian's name written all over it, mind the fact that she was sitting in the front row surrounded by her whole family. Going into detail about separate pieces would be an additional morning headache so I am just going to note the circus stripes, cage dresses which revealed a lot more than they should have and the white pantsuit consisted of a side-slashed blazer with intertwined lapels which came straight off Alexander McQueen's debut show for Givenchy back in 1997.

For more photos of the collections go to Style.com and don't forget to follow me on Twitter!

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