Celebrities met designs replete with sparkle and tailoring at the start of Paris Couture Week on Monday. The autumn-winter 2016 collections presented included Dior, Atelier Versace, Giambattista Valli and Schiaparelli.
Seldom seen at the Paris fashion shows, francophone superstar Celine Dion triggered media mayhem on arrival at Christian Dior’s couture atelier show on Monday dressed in a demure Dior charcoal pantsuit.
The singer, who’s performing in France as part of her European tour, made an emotional return to the stage last month and was all smiles at the autumn-winter couture show despite having endured a difficult year in which she lost both her husband and her brother.
The 48-year-old singer patiently posed for photos with fans before hanging off the bannister of Dior’s iconic atelier at 30 Avenue Montaigne, the venue for the show, to soak up the adulation and iridescent flashes.
The attention even eclipsed that of Johnny Hallyday, France’s answer to Elvis, who also attended and had one screaming woman, in advanced years, trying to scale a barricade just to get close.
Season after season, Donatella Versace wields her enviable address book at Paris Fashion Week to add magic to the Versace brand. Sunday’s late show was testament to this, boasting actors Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Garner and model Naomi Campbell on the front row — kitted out, of course, in Versace.
All eyes were on Garner, who rocked an Atelier Versace silk cady dress from the fall 2016 collection with pale blue inserts and a high slit, as she chatted engagingly with her Alias co-star, Cooper, who looked relaxed in a black hooded bomber.
Campbell had the best look, though, revealing enviable inches of leg in a fully beaded Versace micro dress — that at times impeded her mobility — and a matching beaded bomber.
“It’s too short,” Campbell exclaimed at one point, as she tried to negotiate herself around the front row to chat with some acquaintances.
