Monday 5 March 2012

Paris Fashion Week: Best In Show

Stella McCartney and Kenzo's Humberto Leon and Carol Lim  have without doubt presented my favourite two collections of all respective Fashion Weeks. Paris is known for its extraordinary designer calender and each season, something wonderful happens; I can't confess to previously being a devoted fan of either Kenzo or Stella McCartney but for Fall/Winter 2012 I am more than dedicated.

Stella is a woman's woman: she knows what we want to wear, how we want to feel and what message we want to convey through our clothes. Her Fall/Winter 2012 collection is powerful, elegant and refined without being clichéd or stuffy; cobalt blues and electric pinks are perfectly matched with charming tweeds and more subdued palettes of grey and black, whilst patent ankle boots are boldly worn with above-the-knee skater skirts and oversized jackets. I couldn't give two-hoots about the sports-luxe trend that we're seeing all over the high-street at the moment but for FW12 Stella makes it more desirable than Ryan Gosling covered in chocolate. These are clothes that women want to wear, all of the time.

The big-guns were clearly out over the weekend: Dior, Isabel Marant, Lanvin, Viktor & Rolf, Jean Paul Gaultier, Celine, Hermes and Givenchy all came out to play. Though it was the unlikely Kenzo that really caught my eye. As only their second season with Kenzo, Opening Ceremony's founders Humberto Leon and Carol Lim sent out a fantastically coherent and covetable collection for Fall/Winter 2012; dropped-hem A-line dresses were decked out with autumnal grape-vine prints as cropped jumpers were emblazoned with the tiger logo that will inevitably be replicated for the high-street on a colossal scale. Where last season we saw more of a street-inspired edge from Kenzo, this collection was altogether more accomplished and fun. 

Forget the apocalyptic leathers and blacks that have recently permeated the catwalk, these collections are exciting and act as a constant reminder of all that is great about womenswear. 

Photos from style.com 

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