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International Herald Tribune
12 Tuesday, October 9, 2007
By Suzy Menkes
he models were poised, the so-
T cial ranks were brimming —
only the fashion critics, held
up by a chaotically late Louis
Vuitton show — were missing.
It takes a lot of class, as well as pa-
tience, to handle the situation. And
Ralph Rucci deserves plaudits in both
categories for his elegant handling of an
awkward situation and for the refine-
ment of his Chado Ralph Rucci show.
Presenting his ready-to-wear for the
CHADO R ALPH RUCCI
Miu Miu’s sexy French maids
From Page 11
ming with excitement, saying, ‘‘Wasn’t
that beautiful?’’ backstage, her enthusi-
asm speaking for the entire fashion
audience.
By the time Marc Jacobs took to the
runway at his Louis Vuitton show,
pointing gleefully at the video-screen
bag he toted and making facial ges-
tures, everyone had already got the
message: ‘‘You want handbags? Take
that! And that! And that!’’
There were, it is true, 6 out of 57 exits
without those money-spinning bags.
And the clothes were colorful, if chaot-
ic. But since the show opened with a
dozen of the most iconic of famous su-
permodels (including Naomi Campbell,
Eva Herzigova and Nadja Auermann)
dressed in nothing but translucent
nylon raincoats over colored corsetry
and with a lacy mask across the lips (oh!
and carrying handbags, of course), the
Jacobs theme of the season was set.
Vuitton had worked in collaboration
with the American artist Richard
gucci.com
Ralph Rucci’s class act
first time in Paris — although he has
shown before in the couture season —
the New York-based Rucci made sense
of current themes. In particular, he
handled gracefully transparency, by
using his favored ajouré, or open-work,
techniques that let daylight in on the
body. So apparently simple, yet requir-
ing delicate work, these ‘‘r uns,’’ li ke
runs in hosiery, were worked into wool
and even leather.
The show started on a casual note, a
soft blouse with a pattern of apparent
brush strokes draped above narrow
pants. This sporty side of Rucci was
echoed even in the couture pieces, when
a rolled-sleeve chiffon top partnered a
satin shirt with all-American ease.
But Rucci is nearer in approach to
Parisian couture in the way he forms
VION NET
Prince, famous for his sardonic takes as
art works and for his ‘‘Naughty Nurses’’
series of fetishized hospital figures, re-
colored in lurid shades on postwar
pulp fiction covers.
The show tent was lined with similar
book covers announcing ‘‘Tokyo by
Night’’ — or any other city you could
name to cover the vast space. The bags
themselves seemed rather calmer: big,
square shapes with brush strokes or
photographic effects wiping out some
of the ‘‘Louis Vuitton’’ letters under
what seemed like a plasticized surface.
How fortunate that there was a letter
on each surgical cap of the sexed-up
nurses, who lined up to spell out
LOUIS VUITTON, as did the finale of
corseted women, bringing a Dolce &
Gabbana-style ending to the show.
Prince defined what has been called
‘‘appropriation art,’’ using existing
work to morph it into something else.
That is Jacobs’s method too. The
clothes took what the music business
would describe as ‘‘sa mplings’’ of exist-
ing pieces, putting them randomly to-
Fashion
the silhouette of a suit with soft round-
ed shoulders or creates a slender dress
with open-air seams punched through
it. With so many of the classic couture
houses now abandoning any classic ele-
ments (wearable clothes), this collec-
tion was a client-friendly addition for
those who crave haute elegance.
The turn-around at Vion net has be-
gun — and that is the appropriate lan-
guage to describe the work of the de-
signer Marc Audibet, who put so much
loving attention into the back of his
slithering dresses. A red ribbon criss-
crossing a bared back or just a scoop at
the nape proved how deeply Audibet has
understood the essence of Madeleine
Vionnet, who invented the bias cut in
the 1930s. ‘‘It's the mystery — she was a
sorceress,’’ said Audibet, explaining
IGOR CHAPURIN
Photographs by Chris Moore/Karl Prouse
gether, often to fine effect, as in a sky
blue jersey dress worn over a rainbow
of pink/mauve/blue tulle bunched un-
derneath. The vivid colors were com-
pelling: thigh-high hose in spring green
rising below a narrow skirt split at the
middle; or the coral, yellow, turquoise
and scarlet used for bouncy skirt
dresses.
Was it art? Was it fashion? Just count
the LV bags.
A sly, fetishistic sexuality filled the
Miu Miu collection where ultra-short
skirts were a parody of French maids’s.
The models walked with their derri-
eres covered with rompers and their
wrists and ankles bound with snowy
white lacy cuffs.
Miuccia Prada, for whom Miu Miu is
an increasingly assertive part of her
oeuvre, is both explicit and implicit in
her collections. Projected on the wall
were repeated random clips — of clas-
sical ballet, of the ‘‘Burning Man’’ festi-
val, of sumo wrestlers, Japanese swim-
mers. Whatever. The front-row star
Adrien Brody and his actress-girl-
how the importance of Vionnet’s style is
the apparent ease with which fabric
‘‘falls like the rain’’ across the body.
That effect comes from complex
seaming. And just following Audibet’s
trail of seams was a jigsaw puzzle: here,
a diamond pattern etched into a short
chiffon dress; there, a sunburst of tiny
tucks in a bodice or a halter neck with
the skirt draped across the body below.
The 20-piece presentation was mostly
in black, but used that as a ‘‘color’’ ac-
cording to different textures. A touch
of red and a soupçon of pink made for a
sophisticated and elegant after dark
collection that deserves the big invest-
ment needed to revitalize Vionnet.
Igor Chapurin did not just tell the
fashion world that he had ‘‘Russia n
Drea ms.’’ He showed a video of himself
slipping between the bedcovers, awak-
ing, rumpled, in the morning — and the
vivid visions of galloping horsemen, dis-
tant landscapes and soulful close-ups
that came in between. Perhaps all of that
was compressed into the flat squares of
chiffon appliquéd in millefeuilles on the
front of the dress or the pale green,
primrose yellow and lilac colors that ran
through the collection. The only obvi-
ous reference was to the military in the
cut of a jacket or the streamlined shape
of the fashionable overalls.
There is a sense that Chapurin was
divided in this collection about whether
to put in more of his Russian soul or
whether to please his loyal clients who
expect him to mirror Western luxury.
Sometimes the two demands dove-
tailed, as in a simple dress with a pattern
of smoke trailing across the surface.
JASMINE DI MILO
Jasmine di Milo is slowly moving
her collection from party dresses for It
girls to something more elegant, so-
phisticated and classy — especially the
high-waisted long dresses that fell in a
sunray of pleats and seemed a world
away from the scanty, frilly frocks with
which she started her career.
Suzy Menkes is fashion editor at the
International Herald Tribune.
friend, Elsa Pataky, just loved it.
‘‘It’s about the theater of life — a nd
how people dress for their performanc-
es,’’ said Prada, as though this helped to
explain why the models had gleaming
dragonflies or spiders stretched over
their shoes. (To sell shoes, maybe?)
But however weird Prada's vision is,
she has been making Miu Miu compel-
ling viewing. The glutinous nylon
transparency of last season’s Miu Miu,
inserting sexuality into classic clothes,
is all over the current runways. How
the tutu skirts with a ballet bounce, the
Las Vegas show girl looks, the harle-
quin stripes and the streamlined pa-
jama tops with narrow pants will trans-
late into a fashion direction is as
obscure as Prada’s projections. But be
sure that she is onto something — even
if it is just costuming a rerun of that ul-
timate seductive 1949 vision by Jean
Genet of ‘‘The Maids.’’
iht.com/style
Photographs from Paris Fashion Week
Azzaro sparkles
t Azza ro, the designer Vanessa
A
Seward is creating clothing for
uptown girls who like to sparkle. Pat-
rons of the brand can do this by
wearing one of Seward’s jewel-tone
silk jersey gowns that twinkle with
crystal-covered necklines.
This season they have even more
ways to shine, as Seward has started
an accessories line to accompany the
cloth ing. It includes evening bags de-
signed with Leiber and a collection
of costume jewelry in feather-light
Plexiglas that has a degraded effect,
moving from light to a dark glittery
center.
But the busy designer has not
stopped there. Maybe she was think-
ing of her November nuptials or
more likely the honeymoon, when
she decided to start a line of swim-
suits for Azzaro, too. Fans should not
worry, though; they also come with
sparkling rhinestone embellishment
so that even on a deserted beach, cus-
tomers can be shimmeringly chic.
— Jessica Michault AZZA RO
Luxury lifts
off in cyberspace
Left, the e-commerce
site for Hermès.
In September, Giorgio
Armani introduced a
new U.S. e-sales site
for its Emporio
Armani line, above.
By Kevin Brass “They see the Internet as strangers in
trench coats molesting their brands.”
fter years of turning up its But the e-commerce numbers are
A nose at sales on the Internet,
the luxury fashion industry is
increasingly embracing the
plebeian world of e-commerce. In the
last 18 months there has been a flurry of
hard to ignore. Online sales accounted
for $259.2 billion this year, up 18 per-
cent from 2006, according to the U.S.-
based Forrester Research. And e-sales
of luxury products alone are expected
activity, with Valentino, Burberry and to generate $2.5 billion this year, grow-
Jimmy Choo among the high-end ing to $7 billion by 2010, it says. “Wh ile
brands that have either started or ex-
panded their online sales efforts.
And in the last few weeks alone,
Louis Vuitton, the French jeweler
it’s still a small percentage of overall
retail sales, it’s still the fastest growing
segment” for luxury fashion brands,
said Victoria Bracewell Lewis, a senior
Boucheron and Giorgio Armani all an- analyst for Forrester.
nounced new initiatives. “There is a The accessories specialist Coach re-
very clear mandate among the big fash- cently reported that online sales at
ion groups to move rapidly on this,” Coach.com grew by 51 percent in the last
said Robert Triefus, executive vice year, with revenue poised to pass $100
president of worldwide communica- million in 2007. The site generated 60
tions for the Armani Group. million visits in 2006, an increase of 20
In the past, luxury brands were wary percent from 2005. “As a point of refer-
of anything that might hurt their care- ence, this is more traffic than all traffic
fully cultivated image of exclusivity, or combined in our North American full-
reduce sales at their retail outlets. price stores last year,” David Duplantis,
Some, like Prada and Versace, preferred a Coach senior vice president, said dur-
to sell only through sites run by their ing a recent meeting with analysts.
established retail partners, like Nei- There also is mounting evidence that
man Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. the initial perception of the Web as the
Other companies, including the realm of no-frills bargain hunters and
watchmakers Rolex and Patek Philippe, counterfeiters, not women spending
simply refuse to sell their products on- $1,000 on a handbag, is simply outdated.
line. Rolex is known for actively pursu- On Net-a-Porter.com, a seven-year-
ing Internet sites selling its watches, us- old site based in London specializing in
ing serial numbers to track suppliers. high-end fashion, the average purchase
Eli Katz, chief executive of the online is about £500, or $1,000, according to its
watch retailer Ashford.com, says 10 to founder, Natalie Massenet. The online
15 percent of all luxury brands are still reta iler’s revenue grew 75 percent, to
what he calls “red light” compa nies. £37.2 million, in its last fiscal year, with
“The ‘red light’ people perceive the In- ready-to-wear as its strongest category,
ternet as evil for their brand, and they
will do anything to stop it,” Katz said. Continued on Page 13