PARIS — The conjunction in this fashion week of a definitive exhibition of the work of Yves Saint Laurent, whose masculine/feminine vision dominated the wardrobe of the 20th-century woman, and a book celebrating 60 years of Pierre Cardin, fashion’s eternal futurist, gives pause for thought.
The Balenciaga show detonated the Paris 2010 autumn season on Thursday with a collection that was hyper-modern and futuristic — even if the designer Nicolas Ghesquière has been working before along these lines.
Here were all the designer’s codes: sculptural shapes, streamlined pants, shoes with block heels that looked like a Cubist painting and artistic references. They included allusions to Cristóbal Balenciaga’s work in “angel wing” shapes. For the new version, they were created as a padded puffa bodice with loose flaps at the back.
Then there were the fabrics and their treatments — perhaps the most revolutionary thing about this collection since Mr. Ghesquière already has established his sci fi-meets-Star Wars look.
“It is about how to embellish the everyday,” said the designer backstage, showing how knitwear, which starred in the show, was treated as if rubber studs had been stamped into the wool. And that was just the start. There were also embroidered pants that looked as if they were overlaid in plastic but were apparently the melding of two materials.
Add to all that vivid “Formica” colors, as the designer described the turquoise and lime colors of 1970s kitchen surfaces, and lettering that appeared with poster boldness, taken from photographs of newsprint by the late Irving Penn.
“Magnificent! Exceptional! So chic and so French,” said Frédéric Mitterrand, the French cultural minister, who was sitting front row beside François-Henri Pinault, chief executive of the PPR group that supports Balenciaga.
The show was so exhilarating in its imagination — if rooted in Mr. Ghesquière’s world — that it had the greatest visual whammy seen so far this fashion season. But you still have to ask about today’s Balenciaga the same question that could be asked of Mr. Cardin’s original satellite creations. Is it, as it is shown, wearable and comprehensible outside the fashion cognoscenti?
Mr. Ghesquière has addressed this issue, showing a year ago, in the same gilded and graceful interior of the Hôtel Crillon, a collection of bourgeois glamour founded on the work of Yves Saint Laurent. At that time, it was as though he were announcing, “You want graceful, feminine modern clothes? Yes, I can do that, too!”
But for 2010, the mood was uncompromisingly futuristic — and therefore a little familiar. Of course you could break down these pieces and put an apricot sweater over a pair of black pants and pass unnoticed in the street. Take off the platform shoes and loosen the scraped back hair and dresses with lace were pretty and sophisticated.
That is the skill of Mr. Ghesquière’s Balenciaga, which is exceptional in cut and fabric and is guaranteed to be on magazine front covers. Yet it never captures that emotional ode to women’s natural beauty that was intrinsic both to Cristóbal Balenciaga’s grand gestures and to the Saint Laurent aesthetic. We live now in different times. Maybe Balenciaga is redrawing elegance for the digital age. It is just that in fashion, as in life, tomorrow never comes.
“I really like the idea of things of today — we don’t know about the future, the important thing is that it is for now,” said the Balmain designer Christophe Decarnin, citing inspiration from a classic 1971 outfit by Pierre Balmain and that famous symbol of not-so-low-key French style: the Palace of Versailles.
So almost as much gilding as in the famous Hall of Mirrors walked down the runway: gold brocade jackets with spray-on leather pants, gilded trousers worn with a papal purple coat, a dress with Las Vegas showgirl fringing at the breast and on the sleeves.
The setting was the (gilded) ballroom of the Grand Hotel with a vast crystal chandelier. But whereas previous Balmain shows have contrasted the venue with down-and-dirty, sexpot clothes with a rough military edge, Mr. Decarnin based this collection on a stereotype of Paris glamour.
No matter that V for Versace in the 1980s, rather than Versailles in the 1680s came to mind, as the models tossed their blond wash-and-go hair and Prince sang “Baby I’m a Star” on the soundtrack. It was the kind of collection that called for clichés like “gold standard” and “fringe benefits.”
Yet, even without any fashion innovation, Balmain has still caught a vibe. A taut pantsuit, with its short jacket resting on the derrière, the designer’s signature short party dresses with sharp shoulders and, above all, the gilt trip will feed the greedy maw of fast fashion — and give a lot of young women just what they want for right now.
