Givenchy explodes plane for Paris menswear show

THOMAS ADAMSON
AP Fashion Writer

PARIS (AP) — Last season, he used Rihanna and Kanye West to grab attention. This season, he exploded a plane.

Givenchy’s rebel designer Riccardo Tisci certainly knows how to grab the limelight at Paris Fashion Week.

Here are the highlights of Friday’s spring-summer 2015 menswear displays, including show reports from Maison Martin Margiela, Cerutti, Juun J. and Berluti.

GIVENCHY’S EXPLODED PLANE

Decked out in head-to-toe Givenchy, American football player Victor Cruz and Oklahoma City Thunder basketball player Russell Westbrook looked in awe at the spectacle before them.

A huge French plane from 1964, exploded into bits and painted in black, was suspended by steel cables across the circular catwalk. Deconstructed engineering parts hung in the air.

Givenchy commissioned the arresting work from Dutch artist Paul Veroude. The piece took over a month to make.

Who needs A-list pop stars when you can blow up a near-one ton machine?

GIVENCHY

If the plane represented deconstruction, the collection didn’t take heed.

Instead, Tisci’s rather aggressive show sent out a series of rather conventional sartorial styles that went back in time to his earlier sharp Givenchy menswear.

The sharp-suitedness mixed with the more street black-and-white looks: models sporting skull caps, dark earrings and sometimes knee-length boots with thick white lacing.

The looks were contrasting, but perhaps lacked the subtlety with which one of Paris’ most lauded designers is associated.

WILL MARGIELA’S ONE-LEGGED FASHION CATCH ON?

Maison Martin Margiela’s restrained, and rather strange, collection tried to set a new fashion trend: one-legged pants.

The show, which mixed baggy sports pants and flowing coats in sanitized white with more sartorial elements, was notable for its uni-leg silhouette.

A black business-like pant leg was twinned with a light gray boucle shorts-leg and thick hiker’s wooly socks.

Elsewhere, the staple black pant leg was twinned with a patchwork blue denim drainpipe.

At one point, an otherwise fully clothed model walked out with no pants on at all.

Will it catch on?

BERLUTI’S GARDEN PARTY

Berluti has been world renowned for making leather shows since 1895. Now, for a few seasons, they’ve been making clothes.

In the front row sat the luxury world’s equivalent of the Bourbon monarchy, LVMH’s chief Bernard Arnault, and his heirs Antoine and Delphine.

If that’s anything to go by, there’s a lot of money being bet on this venture.

The collection did not disappoint, with clothes fit for a modern dandy.

Loose-fitting jackets were in enviable shades of beige, cream and mustard.

And the rare inclusion of models in their 50s will appeal to the up-and-coming heritage brand’s clientele.

The after-party celebrated the roots of the house founder Italian Alessandro Berluti, with guests treated to Italian-inspired delicacies like champagne risotto in a beautiful garden.

JUUN J. STUDIES FORM

Fashion angels graced the catwalk at Juun J.

In dazzling white, the South Korean designer used billowing monochrome looks to explore pure form and flatness.

Wide-sleeved white tops stretched the torso exaggeratedly from left to right, and uber-baggy pants gave the clothes an ethereal silhouette independent from the bodies wearing them.

It was a neat trick.

The study in form recurred again toward the end of the dizzying 54 looks, with white oversize T-shirts featuring black text or sketches.

Beautifully, the large tubular sleeves stretched out the T-shirt optically to look almost like a piece of flat paper on which the designer had written.

CERUTTI MIXES SUITS WITH LOS ANGELES ATTITUDE

Aldo Maria Camillo subverted the sartorial elegance of Cerutti 1881 Paris with flashes of the color of Los Angeles.

A sporty black singlet was infused with a bright flash of fashion, in the form of a bright red or yellow stripe, and twinned with pants from a suit.

Elsewhere, a loose-fitting suit jacket was twinned elegantly with a silk undergarment shimmering with orange stripes and paisley patterns.

And a beautiful but sober palette in the suits — sand, sage, tobacco and wood — met with highly contrasting and youthful hues of lemon, red, electric blue and orange.

It was a highly styled collection, but will this younger direction appeal to the brand’s older clientele?

____

Thomas Adamson can be followed at http://Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Federal News Network Logo
Log in to your WTOP account for notifications and alerts customized for you.

Sign up