No shopping this week! Please don’t cry. Because you can now go and see FiFi in action! She is jetting around the country presenting Westfield’s What’sWhat Fashion with Trinny and Susannah.. clickhere: www.whatswhat.com.au
Now straight from the front row in Paris and Milan:
Prada: Suzy Menkes- I.H.T.
"As the models walked down the steep runway in dresses as dark as pitch, just a nude-toned neckpiece suggesting something edgy underneath, the Prada collection seemed a world away from last season’s subversive flutter of fairies.
Then came the first shot of arsenic and old lace: the lace worked in flowers, crunchy or transparent, with the kicker in the sexual charge coming literally from underneath in the case of transparent panels showing and revealing clinging underpants and alabaster white thighs.
Or there were the more familiar Prada tricks, like bra straps closing a dress over a pristine white blouse or shoes bandaged to the foot as leather petals like torn skin covered the toes.
"I still don’t understand why I like lace - but it is such an accompaniment of women, through childhood, marriage and being a widow," Prada said backstage. She admitted that innocent white lace was not part of her fashion vocabulary. Sky blue and a flash of bright orange was the farthest the designer got from the boudoir glamour of beige lace or the mysterious darkness of a very merry widow, whose bag was even made of lace flowers.
It was a remarkable show, powerful in its presentation as the models descended the ramp, but above all original, inspiring and intensely Prada in its mix of the prim and the perverse.
You could imagine a provincial wife dressing for cocktails in a gilded lace suit, the skirt - like all the hemlines - decorously over the knees. But there was a strong subversive element, from a cotton shirt with a breast-plate front to a nude body suit that filled in the space between different lacy pieces. As if in a Fellini movie, there was a clerical hint to the buttoned-up collars and a sense that Prada was unleashing on the fashion universe both a lace revival and erotic dreams."
Lanvin: Sarah Mower- Style.com
"If there is one collection that encapsulated everything that’s best about Fall—and gave it a high degree of personal expression—it would be Alber Elbaz’s for Lanvin. You want the simplicity of a stark, covered-up, carved-out silhouette? It’s here. You’re craving a dose of multifaceted opulence with it? That’s here, too. And what about a sexy, simple evening dress powerful enough to force you to spend, no matter how much? Look no further.
In one way, Elbaz’s collection was a feat of technical genius. He’d started off by making fabric out of strips of grosgrain ribbon, winding hundreds of meters of the stuff around the body to make shapely dresses, blouses, and skirts—a step on from the free-flowing plissés of his Summer collection. What makes him so special, however, is the humility and realism of his focus. Instead of getting lost in the detail, he said, "Part of a designer’s job is to be pragmatic. Not to be ashamed to think about making life easy for a woman."
The result was a tour de force of innovation and simplicity sparkled up with the most outrageously excessive jewelry—door knocker-sized crystals, slabs of gilt, giant cuffs. Every calibration of usefulness was represented, from plain wool work-ready day dresses and pantsuits through knockout fur and patent coats, asymmetric body-molding cocktail options right up to blindingly brilliant dresses made of vertical ribbons loaded with gold sequins. In a season when so many have anxiously cast around for what women will want in a recession, Elbaz has intuited the best answer of all: Give us restraint, give us pragmatism, but never slam the door on the possibility of utter gorgeousness."
Yves Saint Laurent: Emma Lundin- Vogue UK
"Futuristic model robots and stiff, elegant uniform clothing was the order of the day at Yves Saint Laurent’s autumn/winter 2008-9 catwalk show in Paris.
The models – sporting cropped black wigs, burgundy-black lips and slim line glasses that completely covered their eyes – looked like members of a very fashionable army, while the clothes were beautifully tailored with clear lines, incredible silhouettes and plenty of origami folds.
Building on the fashion house’s strong Eighties legacy, the trousers were slightly too short (a trend for the season – YSL’s Stefano Pilati wasn’t the only designer to make the cut just above the ankle, but one of the most successful to do so), and the oversized, tailored tweed jackets and the asymmetrical biker jackets will surely become must-haves next season.
Contrasts were apparent in more than a few outfits – a white shirt with a conservative collar had origami-inspired, oversized sleeves and was worn with an asymmetrically cut black skirt, while a yellow satin dress with a clean and classic design had a black midriff and a masterly engineered fold down the front, and a pair of baggy sequined trousers (not too dissimilar to the ones once favoured by MC Hammer) were worn with a transparent beige shirt.
The odd spark of colour – yellow and bright blue – made the detailing obvious, while the Eighties theme was broken by a Seventies style skirt ending mid-calf and worn with a black, slightly transparent, tight polo neck jumper, giving it a slim and sexy feel. As the for the accessories, we have a feeling that we’ll see plenty of the wide belts cinching in the waist of jackets and dresses, and the brown croc boots with incredibly high platforms and super skinny stiletto heels. Front row followers, including Julianne Moore, Kanye West, Mario Testino and Jefferson Hack, looked very pleased with Mr Pilati’s performance."
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