Clear Sky Chloe
Godfrey Deeny
March 03rd, 2007 @ 4:01 PM Fashion likes few things more than a debut; so anyone who was anyone showed up Saturday afternoon in the Tuileries to see the initiation at Chloe of Paulo Melim Andersson who presented an intriguing, occasionally very cool and certainly erratic fall 2007 collection that, on balance, would appear to herald the arrival of a significant new talent.
Chloe is something of a conundrum by French standards. A label founded in 1952, the house has represented Parisian jeune fille cool, and yet its most famous designers have all been non French – Karl Lagerfeld and, most recently, Phoebe Philo.
Andersson’s CV - a first rate pedigree as right hand woman to Marni’s creative director Consuelo Castiglioni and many years with the king of intellectual fashion Martin Margiela – seems exactly the right profile for the job at Chloe. And indeed, inevitably, a good deal of the collection recalled Marni – naive prints, clever encrustations and posh hippie attitude.
The gods also seemed to favor the debutante with a lovely Paris spring day, and the models were passing by before a beautiful passing cumulus of clouds seen through the roof of the Salle Ephemere tent, whose top was cunningly changed to clear plastic in the midst of the previous rainy night.
The collection opened slowly - a navy blue open backed dress worn with improbable bright red Doc Martens-style platforms that did not exactly wow. Throughout he used hard oranges and bloody reds that jolted rather than jelled; for some eccentric reason former shade was termed “BBC Regency Drama Lipstick” in the program notes. But Andersson did, at least, have the audacity to stretch the silhouette, with drop waisted party dresses or low necked tunics with mini kimono sleeves.
Like the overly bombastic soundtrack – its mood swung from industrial to piano doodling – the footwear was hit and miss. If the Doc Martens failed to convince a new party warrior wedged ankle boot seemed destined to be a must-have for hipster style setters.
But one third way through, Paulo suddenly found his groove with short dresses embellished with anthracite crystal, natty short suits in some great abstract blotch prints and clever white tops with plastic appliqués. All of them were great, exactly the sort of look to make a guy want to cross the gallery opening to meet the gal wearing them. One could sense that this was a designer with plenty of talent who did not have a mega show today, but has plenty of great stuff in the pipeline.
“Any girl with a sense of fun,” was Andersson’s response when asked by FWD his definition of the Chloe girl.
The show as also an exam for Chloe president Ralph Toledano and his reputation for talent spotting – his hires of Alber Elbaz for Guy Laroche and Philo at Chloe were very brainy, and his choice of Andersson looks to be a good bet.
Leaving the show, a number of pedantic acquaintances did lament that it felt more like Milan and Marni than Paris, but then again, some slow learners complained that Philo’s early efforts were closer to London than the Louvre. In a word, Paulo Melim Andersson appears to have the right stuff.
