Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

The last week of January is always the most coveted of the year top top fashion designers, interior designers, supermodels and celebrities. Since Maison et Objet 2016 was an interior design success and trend setter for 2016, Paris Fashion Week could not be anything less. 

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Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

Yesterday, Karl Lagerfeld and the Chanel Elite presented his Spring 2016 Heute Couture collection for Chanel. As usual, the set was the enchanting Grand Palais, dressed as a grass blue sky landscape.

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

Models like Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid worked the runway with hair swept into a wide twist along the back of their heads while their beauty look consisted of two elongated strokes of eyeliner framing the eye.

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

One prominent silhouette of the collection was a long, lean skirt, cut mid-shin and worn with a rounded sleeve jacket. Accompanying many of these ensembles was a loosely tied belt bag for an iPhone or tablet.

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

This year, Cara Delevingne did not walk on the runway but was on the first row seeing the incredible trends for 2016 and supporting her colleagues.

Maison Margiela

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

John Galliano presented his third Maison Margiela couture collection this morning in Paris. Like his previous efforts, the Spring 2016 collection spanned numerous ideas and showed off his mastery of tailoring, draping, and building up volumes. Here, the 10 talking points from the runway.

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

The show was staged in a long white corridor inside Paris’s Hôtel des Invalides. As with past seasons, there was only one row a seats on either side of the runway, promising no one had a blocked view of the couture. 

Many looks featured flowing pieces of textural fabric added to balloon over shoulders or pouf around chests. 

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

Despite the diversity in cut and silhouette, brocades proved to be a theme that ran through the entire collection. 

Pat McGrath created a special beauty look for each model, with a large swath of models sporting some kind of Bowie-esque glitter or graphic liner around one eye.

Alexandre Vauthier

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

The trend this year at Alexandre Vauthier’s Spring 2016 Couture is Black is the new Black!

A black caban adapted from the 19th-century École Polytechnique uniform, black base layers not long enough to qualify as a dress, and laced boots almost high enough to compensate for such risqué lack of coverage.

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

The repetition wasn’t a matter of being spoiled for choice; it was his way of reiterating the exact construction of a piece that, more than any gala gown, should top a woman’s couture wish list.

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

The corresponding sleeve variations—long, short, and sans—addressed tailoring subtleties not noticeable to an amateur eye.

Bailmain

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

The November terrorist attacks were a defining moment for Paris and the people who lived through them. The subject kept coming up last week at the menswear shows, and this morning at a Pre-Fall appointment, Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing acknowledged their impact on him and his new collection. “Paris is the City of Light, and I want to switch on the lights again,” he said, rattling off a list of influences that included Versailles and Madame de Pompadour, the official chief mistress of Louis XV.

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

The rococo influences came across in lavish jacquards, fringed tassels, and an emphasis on pastel hues, but especially in Rousteing’s new use of the corset, which was layered over a long ruffled lace dress and built into a fitted jacket with hook-and-eye fastenings. Either way, it’s likely to appeal to the body-conscious Balmain girl. The exaggerated pannier hips on miniskirts might be a bit more of a leap for her, but not so unusual as to be intimidating.

One of the highlights was a strapless, décolletage-baring gown with a narrow skirt of densely beaded fringe. When it was suggested to Rousteing that it looked almost like couture, he hinted that the idea of a Balmain couture collection is not such a far-off possibility.

Paris Fashion Week January 2016* Best Moments so far

The brand is definitely in expansion mode; a new children’s line was announced today. Made to measure or not, there’s a high likelihood that the embellished dress in question will end up on a red carpet before awards season is over.

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See also our article on Lady Gaga’s Fashion Squad