Catwalktrends SS2010: harem pants

The looser the better and the more pleats the trendier. Harem pants are the big fashion trend for this spring/summer. They were a big hit in the eighties when MC Hammer wore them and have returned to the fashion world this year in even more extreme versions.

They’re ultra-tight at the bottom and super-loose at the crotch. And since pleats are already in fashion this summer extra pleats make the harem pants look very 2010.

If you wanna try this trend in a safe way, you can start of with a pair of harem pants in black or beige (MaxMara, Badgley Mischka, Moschino). Yet, if you wanna proof you’ve got style you really should wear one of those multi-colored, printed ones we saw at Etro, Givenchy, Kenzo and Karl Noten.

Whatever you wear on top, you should tuck it in your pants. And if you’re wearing a high-waisted version of the harem pants a waist-belt is a great finishing detail.

Together with the jumpsuit, a pair of harem pants are true musthaves this summer. And the great thing about it: they are oh-so comfortable.

Hermès Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

It looked as if Jean Paul Gaultier wanted to stress the origins of the Hermès fashionlabel. There was leather everywhere in the collection, which was inspired by the British 60’s television serie The Avengers.

A not-too-great-looking Lily Cole opened the show in a black leather pantsuit, zipped on the front. The rest of her outfit was made from leather as well: shoes, belt, gloves, bag. Even her bowler hat and umbrella could easily have had some leather parts.

Some crocodile leather followed, on a skirt, a belt, a pair of trousers and a jacket. After that, the leather designs became so thick they seemed more appropriate for men. Especially when the (leather!) ties and the extra-wide pants came by, the show got a very masculine feeling.

Fortunately shades of light gray, camel and brown softened the looks. Just when one of the models came on carrying a New York Times under her arm (slightly pushing Suzy Menkes, who works for the newspaper, to write a good review on the show).

Most of the woolen coats that followed, had leather collars in a different shade. A beige toggle coat popped up out of nowhere, shoulders were accentuated by leather parts and a long leopard printed skirt was seen from under a stiff leather jacket. And though we were happy most labels temporarily said goodbye to this specific animal print it later came by on several dresses, a coat, a blouse and even on one of the two hoop skirts.

There was so much animal material in this collection any PETA activist would have gone mad watching this show. Even we could hardly handle the amount of leather JPG sent off on the runway. Yet we did get very inspired on how many ways there are to wear it.

Valentino Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

For fall Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli got in a very feminine Valeninto mood. Their designs had frills and ruffles from the beginnening till the end of the show and were made out of the most delicate fabrics.

While videos of waterfalls were played on huge screens all over the show area the models worked the runway. The clothes they wore, were embellished with ruffles and floral appliqués. On most designs this looked great, but on a short black leather jacket, worn by Mirte Maas, it felt like ruffle-overkill.

This Valentino collection had a very romantic and classic vibe, still Chiuri and Picciolo succeeded in letting it feel more youthful than before. The fur coats, lace blouses, silk dresses and airy chiffon tops looked smooth. The shades of nude, beige, white and black worked really well with the Valentino red we saw on four dresses and a skirt. Golden studded kitten heels were the perfect detail on every outfit.

Five long evening gowns were the ending of the show. The last one in transparent Valentino red looked stunning. Yet a black lace gown with a butterfly on the right shoulder, worn by Patricia van der Vliet, was even more breath-taking.

Chanel Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

Global cooling, not global warming was the inspiration for Chanel’s fall/winter collection. Now don’t think the show was about durable fashion or had something to do with eco-friendly production. No, on the contrary Karl Lagerfeld even flew in an iceberg from Sweden to decorate his catwalk. After the fashion show that iceberg was to be flewn back to Sweden as well. If you ask us, this kind of superfluous actions only increase global warming.

During the show the iceberg was slowly melting, so all models ended up walking in big puddles of water. What a pity for the luxurious clothes! Karl’s long pants, floor-sweeping coats & dresses and his fur boots all got wet.

His fake fur boots, we must say. Cause the whole iceberg-thing might not have been so politically correct, Karl did use fake fur for this collection. He commented: ‘You cannot fake chic but you can be chic in fake fur’ and explained that fake fur, nowadays, looks very realistic. Because you can hardly see the difference between real and fake fur Karl decided this collection was to be a ‘triumph for fake fur’. The fur came in brown, gray, white and black and was seen on the skirts, boots, pants, cuffs, coats, bags and collars.

Other fabrics were leather and the typical Chanel tweed. Tweed was, of course, used for some of the short jackets, but we saw it on some coats, pants and skirts too. The skirts were rather short, compared to, for example those of Marc Jacobs. They ended halfway the upper leg. The collars of almost all designs were high, as were the waisted pants.

Apart from a little bit of red Karl didn’t use any colors. The show ended with the last models all wearing white designs. Even the necklaces and the large rings were white (they were metallic during the first part of the show). It all looked stunning with the real, white iceberg in the background. Yet we think an iceberg from papier-mache would have been just as nice.

Kenzo Catwalk Fashion Show FW2010

Kenzo’s invitation was a vacuum plastic ‘bag’ with different sorts of dead leaves in it. Kenzo’s catwalk was decorated with what looked like dead palm trees. Let’s just say Antonio Marras wanted to make clear he was showing his fall collection for the brand.

Bourgeois and bohemian styles came together in this seventies inspired collection. Long, wide, dresses were made out of multiple fabrics. Marras chose the most beautiful floral and graphic prints and let those prints come together in his patchwork designs. The autumn colors (light brown/terracotta, light green, yellow and faded pink) he had picked, looked lovely.

Not only different prints were mixed and matched, diverse fabrics were seen in one look as well. Airy floral dresses were combined with fur and sequined waistcoats. Next to the floral dresses we saw checked versions decorated with bibs of feather creations. They were followed by a few darker, striped designs.

The felt hats looked great. Together with the printed scarves, sunglasses and wegde-soled boots they were the perfect accessories for this boho collection.

We read Marras mixed the styles of iconic women like Maria Schneider, Tina Chow and Farrah Fawcett for this collection. But we’ve never spotted these women in such outstanding designs before. And although we liked the show, it wasn’t something we’d never seen before at Kenzo.

John Galliano Catwalk Fashion Show FW2010

The models at John Galliano’s fashion show represented a tribe of adventuring nomads. They wore large coats with fur accents. Some of them wore enormous hats, others had their hair folded into some strange architectural shape.

Like Jean Paul Gaultier, John Galliano used different cultural influences in his show as well. Galliano’s nomads were in fact crossing imaginary borders in search of new land.

The show was a true spectacle. Silver glitter fell from the sky and even fireworks were used. We really had to focus not to let that distract us from seriously looking at the collection.

Galliano designed a lot of coats. They first came by in gray, but later on  we could also see some green, yellow, gold and printed pink. As always with Galliano many details and accessories were added to the looks, which all deserved some attention. Tight necklaces, waistbelts, fur cuffs, floral printed trousers, feather jewelry, striped leggings and colored shoes. Not to forget the crazy hats, wigs and bronze make-up. The models looked larger than life in their voluminous designs and oversized hats.

Towards the end the fabrics became thinner and more skin was shown. Light-colored and transparent fabrics were used for more feminine designs. The show ended with a few long, gold and silver-embroidered gowns. Although we think transparencies and fur are not the best fabrics to combine in an evening gown, it sure was fun to look at.

Sonia Rykiel Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

Enough of the frizzy red wigs at Sonia Rykiel! This time the models had cute pony tails and large pom-pom headbands. The models were happy about it. At least, they all put on a smile at the catwalk.

Sonia Rykiel herself proved she’s not involved too much anymore by sitting front row, next to Beth Ditto. Her daughter Nathalie had to do it all on her own. And she did a very good job.

She let Dutch model Mirte Maas (we say: excellent choice!) open the show. Mirte wore an XXX-oversized woolen suit and was able to make it work. The cozy knitwear that followed, had soft colors like beige, off-white and different hues of light brown. (What a relief after all the bright Sonia Rykiel for H&M colors we had to look at for months.)

There were dresses with knitted sleeves and woolen cardigans, worn with big belts. A long bright red coat with a huge safety pin looked very comfy. We saw pant suits, fur coats and military jackets. On a lot of the pants a diagonal shoulder strap was attached. It didn’t really hold up the pants, it was just a nice detail. In some designs the shape of the breasts was accentuated by the fabric. Yet it made the models’ tiny breasts look even smaller, but maybe that was the intention.

Halfway the show a pair of cycling pants, left behind from the summer collection, was shown. It was worn over a pair of white tights. Soon after that some colors were introduced. Three outfits had collared stripes all over them and a few other designs came in kobalt blue matched with black. Luckily the collection then turned back to neutral shades. Skirts, dresses and jumpsuits came by in satin, chiffon and a transparent sort of knitwear.

So according to Sonia Rykiel the trends for next winter are: natural colors, oversized suits, suitpants, large woolen dresses or cardigans and ladylike details. We can hardly wait!

The finale was, as always with Sonie Rykiel, a big party. All models came up in light-shaded marabou coats and dresses. They were smiling, clapping and dancing and seemed to have the time of their lives. And Nathalie Rykiel…, she just partied along.

Hussein Chalayan Catwalk Fashion Show FW2010

When we arrived at Chalayan’s fashion show the building was filled with the sound of busy city traffic. After everyone was seated (in the way too small chairs) smoke was blown in the air and we heard Chalayan paying a tribute to designer Alexander McQueen on his show soundtrack.

The first few models that were sent out on the runway wore some kind of fireman hats with long flaps at the back. Stiff, dark-colored coats, jeans and grey gym shoes completed their looks.

Then the traffic sounds changed into the sounds of birds, a church clock and a tram and models in different styles entered the runway. They wore headpieces like straw bonnets, metal antenna’s with a feather at the end and some face-covering silver Lurex.

A few pairs of glasses, which read ‘mirage’ (also the name of the show) seemed to give us some explanation on the crazy line-up. Were the diverse designs and headpieces made up in one of Chalayan’s fashion Fata Morgana’s?

While the ‘music’ changed to all kinds of radio channels (we even heard Justin Timberlake’s –  Rock your body) models in big ruffled jackets came on. The jackets were purple- and red-colored and had a lot of volume. The ruffles popped up on a pair of shoes too and some models even wore red clogs.

Raincoats- and hats, capes with matching binoculars and high-waisted woolen pants were part of the mirage too. They were followed by long glitter dresses, shown in black, white, purple and blue. At the end of the show several black dresses with black and pink hats came by.

Altogether we thought it was one messy collection. It was only after Chalayan explained that the clothes represented different states in America (New York, Pennsylvania, Dallas, New Mexico, Utah and Las Vegas) the whole show idea became clear to us.

We felt like Chalayan could have explained it all a bit better…But then again, yesterday even Jean Paul Gaultier didn’t manage to portray his different countries so well in his show.

Ann Demeulemeester Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

Wauw, that was a beautiful and very feminine collection Ann Demeulemeester showed today. The Belgian designer – famous for her strong and tough ladies – brought out an almost sensual, ladylike collection with wide legged, supple trousers, short jackets with small belts tied around the waist for a tailored silhouette, classic capes and blood red accents.

Maybe it was in the contrasting colors and fabrics, the wufty feathers, the gloves,  the softer fabrics and focus at the waist – it all made the tough Demeulemeester woman look a bit more vulnerable, and that’s a compliment.

Of course there were her signature boots, leather jackets and harnesses of braided cords and dark sentiments, but the romantic mood dominated the collection.

Junya Watanabe Catwalk Fashion Show Paris FW2010

While military and outdoor sports were the two themes of Junya Watanabe’s show, army green shades were visible throughout the whole collection.

Tall girls with eye-catching, architectural, blond wigs and somewhat pale, camouflage covered faces strolled down the runway. Their wigs were so big that when two girls passed one another the wigs’ ends would touch each other.

The models wore their waisted coats and jackets in army green or with a camouflage print. They looked tough and feminine at the same time. Especially since their coats were combined with skirts and leggings. Besides, those coats were double breasted (masculine) at the front and pleated (feminine) at the back. And their heavy fabrics (masculine) were mixed with the satin of the skirts (feminine). The models wore black leather shoes and caps or (fake-fur) hoods on their heads.

For a change the models were dressed right for the season: fall/winter. No airy dresses or revealing tops at Watanabe. From under their thick jackets his models only showed as much as their uncovered hands, faces and ankles.

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