Balmain F/W 2009.10 Paris

[esquire]

some of this reminds me something Elvira - The Mistress of the Dark would wear - very Halloween costume

 

[luxmode]

What a tired collection

 

[MaddieS.]

i almost think that this collection is like a continuation of the spring collection. The silhouettes are just so similar, and the dresses that Lara Stone walked in look almost identical to the sparkly sequined dress she walked in for spring. The shoulders of the dress just look all too similar

 

[j´adore dior]

I kinda like the fitted smoking jackets with great shoulder pads,and the rest? well, isn´t it what we have been seing for the last three weeks already??, it was kinda of obvious he was going to glorify this look since he have had such an impotant influence over this season´s trends, so I am not really surprised with this collection at all.

Although I do agree with those comments about how they do on retail, in a high end boutique from Madrid which carries most designers they had like 5 Balmain pieces and they were all priced for like 10.000 or 15.000 euros if not more, which I found shocking concidering Balenciaga´s LBDS from last fall (who showed on every single fashion mag cover arround the world) were 2.500 euros.

 

[baguette]

Mama mia thing

 

[lamies022]

That leather dress on Erin Wasson is straight outta Baby Phat no joke
The only look that draws me in is the last one, it's actually comparatively understated and not so tacky

 

[BreakfastatSaks]

LoL so many haters in here! I really like this collection, but I'm a huge Decarnin/Balmain fan so I know I'm biased by my love. Anyone have HD pics yet?

 

[DD.-]

Its not that bad, half of Hollywood and Vogue editors are going to be crazy about this.
And I kind of like it.

 

[Party.in.Paris]

Is it me or it looks a lot like the previous season..

the designs aren't but the materials he used make the whole thing looks TRASHY.

I love balmain, its very disappointing to see this.

 

[Amywilliams]

It's way too similar to previous seasons, only this time, it looks bad

So true..
Just because his last couple of seasons were successful...it doesnt mean he can keep doing exactly the same thing and get the same amount of praise...
And those aladdin pants with the slits down the front Now they are terrible

 

[plasticky]

It belongs so much to me!! ha! just like a choker... choking my consumerist heart!

 

[Crying Diamonds]

Just like Balenciaga the only piece/s I can say I really like are the beautifully cut satin backed black blazers.

 

[simple_elegance]

i'm so sick of the shoulders, just kill them already!

 

[avantgarde]

like versace, this is nothing new but I still love it

 

[csmboy]

That dress on Isabeli with the wing shoulders looks like a GOOD Jeremy Scott.....and that is bad.....

 

[sill]

I hope he does something different next season.. I mean I (for one) like this collection (with some exceptions) but I'm starting to get quite bored..

 

[KKnardi]

PARIS: The covered-over swimming pool at the Ritz hotel was the fashion territory of the lateGianni Versace. So it made a fitting runway for the 1980s redux at Balmain's show on Thursday.

With pagoda shoulders, sparkling fabrics, quilted leather and metal studs, not to mention hunks of crystal, the designer Christophe Decarnin's show looked very familiar - not least because new ideas were as short as the models' brief, buttock-grazing hemlines.

As Diana Ross, the Jackson Five and Sister Sledge ramped up the soundtrack, the theme was "Versace takes a trip" - short skirts thrusting from cut-away long gowns and all the metal mesh and silvered chains that the earlier era once owned. Even the cobalt blue, the single stand-out color among black or white, had an '80s edge.

The Balmain show was as disco as it was frisky and its appeal was simple: sexy chic. Or should that be "sexy chick" because, with their messy hair and bare legs above faintly fetishistic boots, this was not about Parisian glamour but a global hard-partying look.

The clothes are what are vulgarly known as "result" dressing. And the result is certainly wondrous for Balmain, which has gone from being fusty to feisty, making Decarnin the unlikely hero of the Euro-trash set. New insertions were a one-shoulder frill, and harem pants open at the front as a window on the legs. There was even a hint of sportswear in a sparkle-striped boyfriend sweater and the glittering white cardigan and T-shirt that closed the show.

Since every other house copies his approach, Decarnin will have to find a way to move Balmain forward. But for now he remains, at this sobering-up moment, the last designer to leave the party.

suzy menkes / iht.com

 

[kiddokiddo]

Now it's just being plain tacky

 

[irulan]

For once, when a collection sucks, I would like the important critics to say so and not the incredibly popular 'It sells, so ok, well, I just shut my mouth'.
It does suck. Period. Say so. You got eyes, Suzy Menkes.

 

[entirely officia]

You know what I'm going to speak in general defense of this collection. It's the same crap different day but there is something so completely wonderful about it. The Balmain girl is just...well she's a girl I enjoy. She's one of those cigarette smoke scented, slightly drunken party girls whose skirt is too short and she's not wearing undies. She's this brazen almost unhinged creature high on money, low on class and yet irresistible. These clothes are the clothes you get sloshed in the back of a limo in - I'm never going to do that but I'm glad someone else is so I'm happy this exists. SOMEONE has to do this and now that Roberto Cavalli has gone and gotten recession conscious and faux-classy I'm more than happy that Christophe Decarnin has picked up right where he left off and provided the Kate Mosses of the world with something to have hiked up backstage at a Kills concert.

Kudos Christophe. Kudos.

^^wow! Well said. Exactly my thoughts. I could never express it so clearly though