Christian Dior Fall/Winter 2012 Paris Fashion Week

Fashion designer Bill Gaytten looked (to old school Dior) towards the archives for inspiration with his second mainline collection for Dior’s fall 2012 presentation. With still no official word on a permanent creative director, the new season showcased demure forties and fifties inspired silhouettes in a muted color palette of taupe, black and burgundy. Despite the lack of Galliano opulence, Gaytten offered a lovely refinement for the autumn season with ballerina inspired shapes. Cinched jackets, pleated skirts and jewelry style embellishments dominate the Dior woman’s wardrobe for autumn.

"He's doing a really good job. I thought it was ravishing, such lovely colours - the Dior customer would be very happy," said Vogue's Lucinda Chambers, noting it to be very pared down but very feminine. "It was really polished, but gentle," she said.
Gaytten had taken inspiration from Dior's masculine tailoring and combined it with a ballet femininity which took shape through cinched waists to reveal splaying, thickly-pleated skirts beneath in shades from mauve through to red wine and powder pink.

Nina Ricci RTW Fall 2012 -13 - “Nostalgia for the present”

Nina Ricci - Nostalgia for the present -There were proper lady moments, like a black cashmere coat darted at the small of the back and with a blush fox collar, and playful deconstruction, like a slipdress that looked like a classic negligee at the top with a nubby ivory tweed skirt, and an exceptional webby, patchwork knit sweater worn with a pencil skirt.

That the clothes were exquisite in their naïve femininity was almost a given, but the seductive edge that coursed throughout came as an enticing surprise. Copping devoted a lot of yardage to black — sheer tulle, lace and see-through cutouts — for one thing. And since grown-up clothes don’t usually fit little kids, the proportions were artfully sized up, so loose tops grazed the body, fur stoles fell off the shoulders and sleeves dangled below the hands. It was an adult look that little girls will love to grow into.

Palladium metal incorporated into a dress by Hussein Chalayan

Hussein Chalayan’s fall 2012 show today will feature two dresses with graphic, sculptural necklines made of palladium. For the uninitiated, palladium is a lustrous white metal — the latest to be designated a precious metal as of 2009 — known for its strength despite its lightweight nature. Chalayan said the two designs are a “teaser” to his new multiseason partnership with the International Palladium Board, or IPB, and its new fashion program, Palladium Visions, which launched with a fine jewelry program recently during London Fashion Week.

If the IPB has anything to do with it, you’ll be hearing much more about palladium and its many uses — from industrial design to fashion. IPB has plans to roll out several fashion-driven partnerships in the next year, the first of which is with Chalayan, for whom technology and mechanics are a signature design motif. “It was a very natural gravitation for me,” said Chalayan, noting that he’s worked with metals in the past but didn’t know much about palladium until this project. “Think about aircraft. Aircraft have to be light and strong. Palladium is interesting [when] used for stuff that’s supposed to have the appearance of something heavy but is quite light.” Chalayan backed the metal with plates of neon Perspex, whose “color oozes out from behind.”
Source: WWD

China in the Front Row

China is the new key market - The strategy for conquering the Chinese public this season has moved to the front rows of the catwalk shows: Chinese celebrities are ever more present alongside top buyers and the editors of the most famous magazines in the world.

The actress Yuanyuan Gao was at the Max Mara show during Milan Fashion Week, while in October Zhou Xun – Karl Lagerfeld has called her “a mélange between a young Coco Chanel and Zizi Jeanmaire” – was in the front row of the Chanel show.

Last March, in Paris, Louis Vuitton hosted Fan Bingbing in the front row at its show. The actress then wore an Louis Vuitton outfit at Cannes 2011 for the galà Amfar.

We wait to see how many celebs will be arriving from the Far East to be present at Paris Fashion Week, which opened today.

Source:Vogue.it - Marta Casadei

A.F. Vandevorst Autumn/Winter 2012-13, Paris Fashion Week

A.F. Vandevorst Autumn/Winter 2012-13

Balmain Autumn/Winter 2012-13, Paris Fashion Week

Fashion collection Balmain  Autumn/Winter 2012-13 - Pearls, jewels, green velvet and gold all worked together as wider-in-the shoulder and boxier jackets - where in the past they had been inverted triangles - took to the catwalk. It was out, not up, in silhouette - a trick that brought a real freshness.

The colour palette, too, proved this new fresh luxe direction - no longer muddied by the Balmain girl's night out before. Think medieval green, pinks and silver, glistening brocades, pearlescent shades and opulent gold with cream and white.

This collection conveyed layers of cultural references - in the ornately embroidered biker jackets not dissimilar to tapestries, and the first series of pearl studded looks which looked like extravagant sets of armour.

Balenciaga does "The Office" for Paris fashion week

PARIS (Reuters) - Balenciaga gave the fashion world a high-style, highly finished glimpse at corporate glamour on Thursday in a fashion show set in an office tower featuring voluminous shapes and blocks of color.
Playing with finishes from shiny to matte that incorporated leather, wool and silk, designer Nicolas Ghesquiere paired bold flashes of citrus or electric blue with reflective blacks and grays for a modern, futuristic look.
Form-fitting dresses of leather and silk featured panels of color and texture -- shocking red at the bottom and shiny black silk at the bodice, cut in two by a swathe of cream and black printed fabric.
Blouson-type pants were roomy at the hips and narrowed at the ankle in a parachute-type fabric, at once both structured and flowing, and imparting an early 1980s vibe on the Fall/Winter ready-to-wear collection.
Balenciaga, now owned by French luxury group PPR, is one of the great 20th century couture labels which showed its first Paris collection in 1937 under founder Cristobal Balenciaga, who was born in the Basque region of Spain.
Called "Fashion's Picasso" by no less than Cecil Beaton, Balenciaga introduced the bubble skirt and other defining designs in the postwar decades and dressed the who's who of the well-heeled elite.
The label, which has enjoyed a revival since the 1997 hiring of Ghesquiere, held its collection on the 27th floor of a modern office tower with a stunning view over Paris. Models walked down make-shift runways highlighted by neon spotlights in the floors.
The interplay of textures and a penchant for shine was also seen at Guy Laroche on Wednesday, as designer Marcel Marongiu showed sheer black blouses, full with volume, paired with boucle pants or skirts, and roomy dresses whose draping evoked a 1920s elegance.

TINY WAISTS, FULL HIPS
At Carven, designer Guillaume Henry chose a bold palette of colors from mustard to red in flamboyant prints, inspired by Medieval Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. One trapeze skirt was sewn in fabric woven into a scene of rural farm life in the Middle Ages.
"We still wanted it to be young and fresh and appealing," Henry told Reuters TV, saying the collection was geared to a city girl who liked the historical look of tiny waists and full hips.
Carven, which opened its first boutique in Paris early last year, is enjoying a burst of popularity and has become one of the new darlings of fashion editors after the couture label that began after World War One lost its luster in the 1980s.
Prints were also front and center at Rochas on Wednesday, as creative director Marco Zanini, inspired by the early 20th century Swedish ceramics artist Wilhelm Kage, took muted bronze, blue and brown tones and combined them in geometric prints.
The results, according to the collection notes, rest on "hand work, exquisite execution and a certain disregard for the notion of 'quiet good taste'."
(Additional reporting by Cindy Martin and Alexandria Sage; Writing by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Patricia Reaney)