CHANEL: When most people have a good idea, they put it down on paper. Karl
Lagerfeld cuts it out of paper. At least that's what he did for his
spring haute couture collection, a show brilliant in more ways than
one. "The idea was a white page," Lagerfeld said days before his show. But
there are white pages and white pages. For his, Lagerfeld commissioned
a floral paradise crafted from 4,000 meters of plain, pristine paper... click to continueCHRISTIAN DIOR: John Galliano is a master deconstructionist who can impose his way on a concept as remarkably as on a piece of cloth. The Dior couture collection he showed Monday offered a dazzling case in point. Galliano worked from an apparently limitless budget for a lineup rooted in New Look extravagance yet inspired by the Dutch Masters, from whom he pilfered a rich Vermeer palette (set against plenty of white), a stately "sittings posture" and gracefully flamboyant portrait chapeaux... click to continue
GIORGIO ARMANI PRIVE: The collection was an ode to a China, Armani said after the show, "that does not
exist anymore." Touché, as it was all about cropped-wig living dolls
and hobble-skirted, baby-step seduction. But the biggest problem was
neither the politics of the message nor the absence of the kind of
brooding romance that might have hooked us in. Nope. It was those
shoulders... click to continueVALENTINO: Many of the clothes that Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli showed on Wednesday looked appealing enough: trim suits, mostly a megahomage to Valentino's white collection; coats detailed beautifully, either with embroideries or intricate constructions; an extensive, quite Val-like pitch to the red-carpet set. These were impressively executed, lacking neither flourish nor couture-quality craftsmanship. But too many could have been sourced right out of the house pattern archive .... click to continue
All photos by Giovanni Giannoni
