Paris Fashion Week: Dior opens with a dance

Dior led Paris Fashion Week on Monday with a spectacular show woven around a new modern dance piece by choreographer Sharon Eyal to kick off the nine-day extravaganza.

Icily restrained models brushed past writhing dancers in a fog of mist and falling paper petals.

Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri said that using dance was “an act of liberation” to break free from the catwalk corset.

Chiuri said she wanted to replicate dance’s “naturalness... but also its discipline” in a striking collection full of flesh tones and nifty headwear.

Pirouetting deftly from Martha Graham-style robes fit for Greek goddesses to elongated tutus and tank tops, the Italian blurred the lines between ready-to-wear and haute couture.

Chiuri, a committed feminist and the first woman to lead the fabled French house, said the show was “about liberty. Clothes are tied to the body and are very personal.”

And she insisted that like each dancer, every look was individual. “There are none of the sequences [of looks] you usually get in fashion shows, each look is for each model.”

Channelling the ghosts of dance greats like Isadora Duncan and Pina Bausch, Chiuri said she was trying to capture the “powerful explosion of the female imagination”.

The show — in a specially built auditorium at the Longchamps race course on the edge of Paris — was a hymn to the carnal and the fleshily human, she said.

“These days everything seems virtual but we do things by hand in our workshops. All the floral printing, the tie dye is done by hand, it’s couture, it’s not industrial.”

With all the billowing dry ice, the designer also wanted to frustrate the front row Instagram queens who spend their time snapping the shows rather than looking at the clothes.

“People miss the moment because they are spending their time taking photos with their phones. I wanted them to experience a show differently... to feel it,” she added.

“It is dance and a fashion show, it is not a traditional catwalk experience at all.”

GUCCI

Gucci — which quit Milan for the French capital to show its spring summer collection — later got in on the act by taking over a Paris theatre and having singer Jane Birkin, her back turned to most of the audience, sing her 1983 hit Baby Alone in Babylone.

With K-Pop superstar Kai mobbed outside by fans, Gucci’s designer Alessandro Michele served up an extra large helping of the oddball 1970s kitsch that has made him such a hit with millennials.

Mickey Mouse manbags, wacky Y-fronts, sleeping mask shades, underpants on the outside of slacks and medallions as big as mayoral chains are only a taster of some of the wacky new looks fashion’s jester-in-chief pulled from his wide-brimmed hat.

Gucci’s decision to show in Paris rather than in Milan base hammered home yet again how utterly dominant the French capital has become in the last few years.

Young French debutant Simon Porte Jacquemus also turned heads with a breeze collection of barely there beach chic dresses for those with the most beautiful of bodies to show off.

Those that don’t took consolation in his tiny handbags, huge earrings and equally enormous shoulder bags.

SAINT LAURENT

With a powerful front row of stars, Saint Laurent headlined the second day of Paris Fashion Week in an eclectic French twist on American styles that featured models walking on water.

Stars such as Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, Matt Dillon and Salma Hayek huddled together in front of 10 giant white palm trees as the Eiffel Tower sparkled at the stroke of 8pm.

Below the trees was a giant expanse of water.

Models in luxury snake boots and sparkling disco heels suddenly appeared and — forgoing the dry catwalk strip — darted sideward to walk straight across the water.

It triggered gasps from spectators, including a tardy Lindsay Lohan.

But behold, the models didn’t sink. Instead, they merely sloshed and splashed.

Designer Anthony Vaccarello was applauded for an impressive biblical-style trompe l’oeil feature for the 15-minute show that created the illusion of a sea despite the water measuring only 2 centimetres in depth.

One American fashion editor duly commented that designers are “ruining a lot of perfectly good shoes with these water effects this season.”

The palm trees, the water and structured swimsuits seemed to point to Malibu or Saint Tropez.

Python boots, silver open-shirts, leather chap-like shorts and hats with chin toggles seemed to lead the eye to the US Midwest.

Then, menswear tuxedos, boyish silhouettes, glam rock boots and silk multicoloured jabot collars evoked the excesses of Studio 54 in its 1970s heyday when Yves Saint Laurent was a guest.

This was what Vaccarello described as a collection with “different personalities.”

“It’s a silhouette created by a variety of pieces, inspired by different eras and timeless icons. Eclecticism is freedom,” Vaccarello said.

But like the water that splashed in every direction on the runway, this display splashed around its references and was ultimately hard to pin down.

The more eye-catching designs — like a plunging V-neck blue and red minidress — though nothing new, are likely to continue the it-brand’s buoyant sales.