Covering Paris fashion is not that stylish
from
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsA...=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage3
By Kerstin Gehmlich
PARIS (Reuters) - When I found myself stuck by actress Kate Hudson's feet, with three cameramen using my shoulders as a tripod, I realized that covering Paris fashion shows might prove less glamorous than it had first seemed.
Paris pret-a-porter shows are extravagant spectacles. Models strut out in four-meter-long dresses, cats and dogs parade over catwalks as living accessories and eccentric designers schmooze with Hollywood stars in the front row.
But getting into these glitzy events, keeping up the pretence of being utterly stylish and getting out in one piece is an entirely different (and certainly not very elegant) affair.
I witnessed fur-clad fashion editors in rather unladylike cat fights for Chanel give-aways. An anti-elegance award might have gone to me for almost ruining designer Christian Lacroix's smooth, sandy catwalk with some clumsy legwork.
The shows' cool and stylish settings can even be a challenge for the very people who produce them.
British designer John Galliano might have hoped for some less sophisticated decoration at his latest show for Christian Dior, when he walked straight into a transparent wall on his runway.
Fashion shows are so extravagant because to big luxury firms like Chanel, Louis Vuitton or Dior, they signify much more than a simple display of new clothes.
The houses use the events to promote their entire brand, hoping to draw customers' attention to their other products; items like sun glasses, handbags, perfumes or jewelry.
Designers, stylists and seamstresses work for weeks on an elaborate new collection but the catwalk parade itself rarely lasts longer than 20 minutes, far shorter than the buzz surrounding the entry of a front-row guest.
Actresses like Sharon Stone or Uma Thurman can keep reporters falling over each other to try to interview them for what seems like far too long a time for everyone involved.
"How do you feel?" one journalist asked Kate Hudson in the front row of a Dior show, with dozens of reporters scrambling around her -- me on my knees, by her feet.
"I'm feeling quite uncomfortable," she replied. That's at least one thing Kate Hudson and I have shared in our lives.
Far from just the stars, sometimes the catwalk itself needs special protection too. This was the case for Christian Lacroix's ready-to-wear show last autumn, when the French designer covered his catwalk with finely woven sand.
Dozens of security guards looked on so that no style-deprived reporter would clumsily step on to the yellow surface. No prizes for guessing whose footprint featured prominently in the sand ahead of the show.
After the show, editors and retailers push backstage to congratulate the designer, while grabbing give-aways left behind on other people's seats. At Chanel's display last autumn, some editors walked away with half a dozen pink parasols stuck under their arms.
Backstage, designers often reveal astonishing details about their collection or philosophy of life.
Britain's Vivienne Westwood handed out little pin-buttons featuring a flying penis in February, saying her show was a call for the release of a prisoner in the United States.
"The Greek penis is a good luck sign," said Westwood.
Now. As for the clothes ...
from
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsA...=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage3
By Kerstin Gehmlich
PARIS (Reuters) - When I found myself stuck by actress Kate Hudson's feet, with three cameramen using my shoulders as a tripod, I realized that covering Paris fashion shows might prove less glamorous than it had first seemed.
Paris pret-a-porter shows are extravagant spectacles. Models strut out in four-meter-long dresses, cats and dogs parade over catwalks as living accessories and eccentric designers schmooze with Hollywood stars in the front row.
But getting into these glitzy events, keeping up the pretence of being utterly stylish and getting out in one piece is an entirely different (and certainly not very elegant) affair.
I witnessed fur-clad fashion editors in rather unladylike cat fights for Chanel give-aways. An anti-elegance award might have gone to me for almost ruining designer Christian Lacroix's smooth, sandy catwalk with some clumsy legwork.
The shows' cool and stylish settings can even be a challenge for the very people who produce them.
British designer John Galliano might have hoped for some less sophisticated decoration at his latest show for Christian Dior, when he walked straight into a transparent wall on his runway.
Fashion shows are so extravagant because to big luxury firms like Chanel, Louis Vuitton or Dior, they signify much more than a simple display of new clothes.
The houses use the events to promote their entire brand, hoping to draw customers' attention to their other products; items like sun glasses, handbags, perfumes or jewelry.
Designers, stylists and seamstresses work for weeks on an elaborate new collection but the catwalk parade itself rarely lasts longer than 20 minutes, far shorter than the buzz surrounding the entry of a front-row guest.
Actresses like Sharon Stone or Uma Thurman can keep reporters falling over each other to try to interview them for what seems like far too long a time for everyone involved.
"How do you feel?" one journalist asked Kate Hudson in the front row of a Dior show, with dozens of reporters scrambling around her -- me on my knees, by her feet.
"I'm feeling quite uncomfortable," she replied. That's at least one thing Kate Hudson and I have shared in our lives.
Far from just the stars, sometimes the catwalk itself needs special protection too. This was the case for Christian Lacroix's ready-to-wear show last autumn, when the French designer covered his catwalk with finely woven sand.
Dozens of security guards looked on so that no style-deprived reporter would clumsily step on to the yellow surface. No prizes for guessing whose footprint featured prominently in the sand ahead of the show.
After the show, editors and retailers push backstage to congratulate the designer, while grabbing give-aways left behind on other people's seats. At Chanel's display last autumn, some editors walked away with half a dozen pink parasols stuck under their arms.
Backstage, designers often reveal astonishing details about their collection or philosophy of life.
Britain's Vivienne Westwood handed out little pin-buttons featuring a flying penis in February, saying her show was a call for the release of a prisoner in the United States.
"The Greek penis is a good luck sign," said Westwood.
Now. As for the clothes ...
...
