http://iht.com/articles/2006/01/29/opinion/rmon.php
I think I much prefer paris dark over the dark in Milan:-P
Affirming the male in a long, dark winter By Suzy Menkes International Herald Tribune
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2006
PARIS As if the bitter cold of the currently frosty European weather were not enough, menswear designers have this chilling message in their 2006 shows: It is going to be a long, dark winter.
Patches of leopard print - a story of the season - were the only bright spots in a forest of lean, black overcoats and elongated evening tailcoats passed off as daywear. Thick sweaters, narrow pants and hefty boots were as black as your chimney stack hat. That accessory was another seasonal trend from John Galliano's cast of Dickensian caricatures.
The music confirmed the dark message as Junya Watanabe had the tense, urban angst of Robert De Niro on the soundtrack from Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver," and Comme des Garçons had Tom Waits's neighborly neurotic asking "What's he building in there?"
The underlying story is that affirmative masculinity is beating out the metrosexual male. There were no models on the runways getting in touch with their softer sides - unless you count Louis Vuitton's logo-printed fur earmuffs.
Yet, halfway through the Paris season, there were no standout shows.
The Louis Vuitton show had a spectacular graphic runway and sculpted silver backdrop created by the Scottish artist Jim Lambie. High-end sportswear proved that the genre still exists in designer clothes. By mixing lush chinchilla body warmers and plush alpaca coats with nylon parkas, the designer Marc Jacobs created covetable modern luxury in keeping with Vuitton's travel heritage - although without moving it forward.
Watanabe cited "positive motivation." His collection was strong and well-judged, in its mix of patches of camouflage and plain fabric, coats cut taut and lean from a raised waist and military or snug jackets. They were mixed with plaid or striped shirts, and scattered with messages declaring "love," but the overall effect was of realistic, man-friendly clothes.
Raf Simons talked about "constructed architecture" and he worked on graphic lines, playing with double-layered coats (rounded edge over square) and with narrow shirt collars, spindly pants and boots with spirals of zippers. It was a sleek show: the black and gray palette highlighted with white and silver, and the sheen on a puffa parka set against a woolen coat. But the edgy, adolescent with which Simons made his name has grown up and the dynamic impact reduced from major to minor. And although Simons said backstage that he wanted to distance this show from his Milan debut at Jil Sander, this pure collection was on similar lines.
Dries Van Noten said that he wanted to do a "serious" collection, getting back "to what is essential in menswear." That meant switching from recent poetic odysseys to easy clothes, which came out to Bryan Ferry's Roxy music under a canopy of multicolored umbrellas. The clothes were quiet, but revved up with the newly fashionable animal prints - as scarves, shirts, sweaters or coat-linings - used gracefully to create a masculine elegance.
Martin Margiela also confirmed the animal print trend by using panther prints for striking shoes and as patches on shirts. It was part of a nature theme that brought raindrop and fork lightning patterns to well-proportioned clothes, while Margiela's classic collection was a powerful lesson in modernity.
The ritual jousting between Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto seemed even more pronounced this season, but neither show packed a big punch.
Comme's Rei Kawakubo channeled her rival's oversized proportions for square-cut suits with silver chains. She also used jagged inserts of velvet on sweaters and in tailoring and played with surface embellishment such as fringing at the hem of a shirt. But in the designer's iconoclastic oeuvre, this rebel yell was a whisper
Yohji went whimsical, with medal and star decorations that he said backstage were inspired by the fact that he was honored in Japan. He also had fringe decorations on boxy tailoring and made an effective reprise of his favorite thick cardigan coats with knitted pattern. Sneakers printed with a snarling tiger made hip footwear.
Galliano, who has just signed with the Italian manufacturer IT Holding to design a secondary, lower-priced line, was on his usual creative overload, opening his show with "London boys" wearing the skinny silhouettes of Charles Dickens characters and ending with a parade of his underwear, where prints were inspired by the 18th-century satirical cartoons of James Gilray. Fine pieces, such as coats and shearling flying jackets, could be picked out from the melee.
The idea that black is the new (and even more intense) black was confirmed when the Japanese designer Takahiro Miyashita changed the name of his collection to Noir and used the Irish roots of the rock group the Pogues to create four-leaf-clover elbow patches, capes fastened with Celtic cording and tab-front military jackets. The story was in the intense workmanship.
Kris Van Assche tried to hard to be creative, starting well with the Belle Epoque silhouette and chimney stack hats. But once petals had rained down and the models were wearing nomadic blankets and crowns of flowers, it seemed like undigested inspiration.
At Issey Miyake, the designer Naoki Takizawa said it with flowers. He named the show Color Addict, and quiet tailoring in gray and blue was soon punctuated with a green shirt, orange jacket, burgundy sweater or sky blue coat with apple green scarf . Finally, the models came out with floral bunches to prove that nature's colors are always in fashion.
Relaunching Gieves, the historic Savile Row brand, the British designer Joe Casely-Hayford called the collection Boy Byron, which meant a poetic slant to tailoring. The designer played with subtle colors, based on navy, brightened with electric blue, or purple fading to lilac. By subtly reworking a trench coat or a Norfolk jacket, he achieved his aim of turning a heavy heritage into "clothes that are fresh and light."
Balenciaga's discreet showroom presentation was about added zest: a mix of techno and classic fabrics; leather sleeves and a white Mongolian lamb trim on a duffle coat; a scarlet sweater with twisted cable pattern; crested badges or a gothic "B" for Balenciaga on shirts. But there was no reprise of the designer Nicolas Ghesquière's "rock-the-baroque" women's collection that seemed to have inspired Italian menswear designers to taut tailoring with intense embellishment - a strong look that is so far absent in Paris.
I think I much prefer paris dark over the dark in Milan:-P
