Being born in the 80s but a true child of the 90s I grew up with the glamorous fashion ideal of Cindy, Naomi and Linda necking a bottle of Bolli, snorting a line of coke and climbing off their Greek shipping heirs' laps long enough to swagger and pout their way down a catwalk, keeping just enough energy to shower their chosen designer with kisses and flowers at the end of the spectacle. Then I went to London Fashion Week and saw the reality of sexless twigs marching stony-faced to some avant-garde dance music, the whole show being over in under 5 minutes.
THANK GOD I WENT TO PARIS. Jean-Paul Gaultier clearly had his formative years in just the right decade and, thanks to being invited to his latest menswear show, I can now say I know what a défilé should feel like. Held in his own three-storey high salle des fêtes (that's what perfume money gets you), we drank champagne for 45 minutes before the show began and continued for a good hour afterwards. Models brought us macarons and a German TV channel interviewed me for the national news, all as I slid deeper and deeper into a delirious stupor. The feeling was compounded by being bumped-up to the front row. And then the show started...
Andrej Pejic! Tattooed abs! Models climbing the scaffolding! I may have let out an audible squeal. Apparently everyone else picked up on the theme of the show as soon as the music began - Sherlock Holmes's Discombobulate theme track. Unfortunately I don't watch shit movies like that but I soon caught JP's drift with the brick-prints (a 'trend', apparently), waistcoats, jauntily angled hats and sweeping capes. The styling really tied the somewhat eclectic collection together and amongst it all I picked out some truly wonderful pieces. The black jackets and coats with a pixelated green and silvery white tweed running through, leather highlights on cuffs and sleeves, a floor-length black fur lined gilet and a fabulous cropped tailcoat. The swooshy, pleated black skirt was infinitely better than the JW Anderson one I was hankering after last season and has instantly shot to the top of my list for A/W 12. And, finally, someone showed velvet/velour tops that I've been dreaming of for the past year! Oh, and they come in wine red with classic JPG sailor stripes? Who am I to argue.
By the way, thought you might enjoy this picture I snapped of Yu Masui before the show - are the ears Katie Eary by any chance?
And for those of you who don't go to the cinema to watch action movies (like me), the strangely sinister yet up-beat inspiration for the show...
xxx
Duck
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