212DRESSINGROOM
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The most perfect and difficult merger of extreme sex appeal and smarts in fashion today it is to be found in the work of Christophe Decarnin for Balmain. Now well into his fourth season at the house, the vision he has achieved proves to be complex: a fine blend of subtle belligerence, and refined aggression. This season only Decarnin was inspired and bold enough to unabashedly bring up the topic of sex – sex and flash. He insisted on bare legs, crystal embellishments on skin tight dresses, and a shortening of the hemline. What’s more he seems to be the only one not giving into the current inclination toward demureness. And with the recent appearances of Lake Bell at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Gala in the signature lightening-bolt dress, as well as the impossible Carine Roitfeld, Eva Herzigova and others in the black and silver warped one-shoulder wonder, it seems his audaciousness paid off. Women are hungry for the Balmain brand of sexy.
Christophe Decarnin’s artistic antecedents can be traced back to Thierry Mugler and Azzedine Alaia, both of whom delighted in the scintillating play between flesh and fabric. Decarnin is the most direct extension of this legacy. He continues this tradition of sexual charisma. Although more brooding than someone like Cavalli, he is more akin to Tom Ford, of whom he is perhaps the spirited reincarnation. In fact we have already seen the rampant appropriation of Decarnin’s stylized armoring of the body on Ghesquiere’s runway - the latter’s armor-like dresses mimic the former’s careful contouring. The difference between Ghesquiere and Decarnin, is that the ferocity of the form and shape seems effortless at Balmain, and not as studied. Magically, Decarnin’s clothes retain that ineluctable mix, a sense of exuberance and defiance that is the soul, the essence of rock and roll.
Like Nicolas Ghesquiere, Decarnin is earning his place in the top tier of designers who are attempting to bring a different kind of sensuality to women who refuse to be passively objectified. In this regard, Decarnin is a conceptual designer. The women who wear Decarnin’s clothes are in control of the means of their exteriorization; these women incomparably embody the assertiveness that his vigorously narrow silhouette requires. They are not overconfident as much as they are acutely self-aware of the power of their sartorial prowess.
The challenge for Decarnin remains to demonstrate that his clothes present more than an over-sexed body conscious shape. He is quite in demonstrating this won’t be a problem. Decarnin’s talent is his ability to bring together the best of fashion’s variable worlds, so seamlessly – an urban luxe feel, a slight bohemian wistfulness, and a gritty, hard-edged sophistication that women in their 20s and 30s have been waiting for ever since the Tom Ford era at Gucci.
Decarnin’s vision seems to be void in New York where the general temperament of the fall shows was somber, perhaps overly so. Were he to firmly plant himself on Madison (preferably next to Tom Ford), I predict urban fashionistas would wholeheartedly embrace his rock and roll spirit. How could they not? The shimmering vividness, the sheer brazenness of Decarnin’s clothes, is an unapologetic call for women to break out of safe and subdued trends.
So for those of you who are tired of the sophisticated socialites, babydolls and femme fatales, consider Mr. Decarnin’s wakeup call: It’s time to stop playing fashion and actually live it. Sexiness is making its fearless comeback.
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Christophe Decarnin via 212/BLOG
