Ladylike chic strikes back
Guardian's Jess Cartner-Morley takes a close look at the collections, while raising questions about all things Ladylike.
Even though if i'm not really in tune with her views, i've found this one of the most fun-to-read round ups of this season main mood.
(due to its length i tried to edit.. but its too interesting an article to post extracts from, so here it goes, almost unedited -apart from it's silly intro- quite long but still fun to read.. enjoy
)
opinions?
Guardian's Jess Cartner-Morley takes a close look at the collections, while raising questions about all things Ladylike.
Even though if i'm not really in tune with her views, i've found this one of the most fun-to-read round ups of this season main mood.
(due to its length i tried to edit.. but its too interesting an article to post extracts from, so here it goes, almost unedited -apart from it's silly intro- quite long but still fun to read.. enjoy
)...it is with some alarm that I have noticed, in recent years, the concept of being a lady - or at least, looking like one - gaining ground. It started with those bloody nail salons.
They popped up on every high street, were featured endlessly in magazines, and before we know it we're all expected to spend every Saturday afternoon making tortuous conversation with an 18-year-old while she hacks at our cuticles, and then sit staring out of the window, frustrated as a bluebottle in a Venus flytrap, while our French manicure dries. Ladylike, to me, is like goody-goody, only with better PR.
None the less, fashion has been increasingly obsessed with all things ladylike for two years now. There have been digressions along the way - for winter it was Prada's sci-fi minidresses, this summer it is Gucci's decidedly unladylike bronzed sequin swimwear with ragged-edged bite hole at the navel - but the overall direction has been distinctly proper. Last summer, Marc Jacobs' pastel Jackie O coats sold out in weeks, despite the £2,000 price tag; by autumn, every designer worth their salt was channelling the Jackie look, with prim gloves and Chanel-a-like suits all over the high street. This spring, Prada (and hot on their heels, Marks & Spencer) has revived the 50s full skirt, blouse and belt as a key summer look.
At this week's Paris fashion shows, the lady ruled supreme. Eroticism centred on wasp waists rather than bare breasts; skirts were to the knee, or just below; plush fabrics whispered of wealth and luxury. Anna Wintour, the editor of American Vogue, set the front-row standard, wearing dresses with court shoes and a belted jacket in fur or crocodile. At the fashion shows, Wintour never carries anything - not a handbag, not a notebook, not even a mobile phone (unless it is hidden in the palm of her hand). Fifteen years ago, a woman in her position would have been proud to carry an expensive, bulging Filofax and a Mont Blanc pen. Now, Wintour clearly feels it carries more status to look like a lady of leisure.
It is difficult not to feel that the lady look is a backward step. It is worth noting that in conjuring up the image, designers seem very strongly drawn to the pre-feminist years - the 40s, 50s and early 60s. And an unsavoury, to my taste, footnote to the lady revival is the abundance of fur. There were many women wearing fur coats at this Paris fashion week, both on and off the catwalk. They exude a haughty air of refinement - you coarser creatures have your blubber to keep you warm, they seem to be saying, but us ladies who don't lunch must be cushioned from the rough and tumble of the world with our powder-puff soft minks.
However, the ladylike look does have some plus points. It is dignified - not too much flesh - and features a great deal of tailoring, which is a darn sight more flattering to most figures than stretch chiffon. It is distinctly grown-up, so no mutton-dressed-as-lamb worries.
Three of the week's major shows were farewells - Julien Macdonald at Givenchy, Michael Kors at Celine and last but far from least, Tom Ford at Yves Saint Laurent - and they each gave a different spin on the look. Julien Macdonald paid homage to Givenchy's most famous fan, Audrey Hepburn. So dresses were simple and black, and worn with ballet pumps; jackets had wide necklines and peplum waists and skirts were fitted to the knee. Eveningwear was stately and sculptural: a gunmetal silk gown, simple from the front, boasted a vast bow at the back. Think blushing bride, or Renee at the Oscars.
During his time at Celine, Michael Kors has honed the rich-b*tch look to perfection: flashy clothes to show off how rich and how thin you are. This season, the b*tch element was airbrushed out and instead we had understated, perfectly matched, nice-as-pie clothes. For instance, a camel dress with a matching jacket worn over the shoulders - a look that says, "I'm so delicate and demure that I always keep my arms by my sides" - or a scarlet poloneck with matching calf-length skirt and a slim crocodile belt. In real life, you'd probably be wise to ditch the belt - very few of us have tiny enough waists that a jumper looks better belted than not - but it still works.
Yves Saint Laurent has long been a byword for sophistication. For this last show, Tom Ford stayed away from the edgier elements of Saint Laurent's back catalogue - the Mondrian dresses, the peasant blouses - and concentrated on the more classic images. So we had satin blouses with sharp shoulders and high necks, worn with fit-and-flare knee-length skirts in contrasting colours as rich and shiny as lacquer: scarlet with magenta, pale pink with aubergine. There were superb cocktail dresses in dragon-print silk, cut Geish girl-tight and with a simple teardrop cut out at the throat. Accessories - sure to be a sellout, as fashion fans rush for a last little piece of Ford - included glossy wedge sandals and tiny metal clutch bags, barely larger than a cigarette case.
Hermès was a debut amid all the swansongs, for Jean Paul Gaultier. Judging by this first show, this is a happy pairing of designer and label: Gaultier is theatrical enough to give swagger to the Hermès heritage, but has enough wit to prevent it becoming stuffy. This was a heavily equestrian-themed collection, and so inevitably looked better suited for country than town, with all the jodhpurs, headscarves and blanket coats. The iconic Hermès Birkin bag (still the ultimate lady's status symbol, despite the apparent unladylike carrying-on of the Birkin-wielding Martha Stewart - was given a makeover, with dinky evening versions, and Birkin-style fastenings on everything from shift dresses to riding boots.
Alber Elbaz (who also once designed for YSL) has revived Lanvin precisely by playing on a nostalgic vision of ladydom. Kate Moss, an unlikely convert to ladylike looks but an influential one (the vintage lemon chiffon dress she wore to a New York fashion week dinner last September has become one of the most copied of recent years, cropping up again in peach chiffon at Chloe), sat in the front row wearing a pale Lanvin coat. This was not the stellar collection of last season, but the overall look was one of being very dressed - not necessarily very dressed up, just very dressed - in slim coats, high heels and face-framing hats.
There were a few more wayward angles on the ladylike look. Chanel, whose iconic suits are a lady staple, chose this season to explore androgyny, with Teddy-boy coats and drainpipe trousers. But there was light relief in the classic quilted bags and the black and white chiffon dresses with delicate prints and pearl trim. Louis Vuitton was very ladylike, but slightly surreal, as if Alice in Wonderland had been dressed by Vivienne Westwood
Alexander McQueen was one of the few to look forward rather than backward this season, but even here, there was a pared-down ladylike look to the exquisitely tailored boiled tweed skirt suits, and artfully simple shift dresses. Dries van Noten was highly feminine, with soft shapes and the usual array of beautifully muted olives, plums and bronzes, but had a texture and ruggedness that marked it out from the prim-and-proper mainstream.
The designer of Chloe, Phoebe Philo, famously used to assist Stella McCartney. Two years after they parted company, there is still an eerie synchronicity between the two. Not just in their taste in music - this season, McCartney used the Dixie Cups' Iko Iko
They both like to incorporate masculine elements in their clothes, but to phrase it in a coquettish girl-in-her-boyfriend's-shirt way, rather than a Jil Sander-ish trousersuits-for-girls way. Stella's clothes were inspired, she said, by a glamorous city girl who runs away "to join her rogue boyfriend on an escapade". And so there were gorgeous, grown-up party dresses in black or oyster or tomato, knee-length and long-sleeved but very, very sexy, but also oversized plaid coats and giant Puffa jackets. Chloe, as usual, was Stella with a spoonful of sugar: the cocktail dresses were a little barer and had velvet bows at the waist, the cover-ups included a boyish tuxedo and a little sequined bolero.
Both collections hit a pleasing note: ladylike, but not goody-goody. Not faddish, but not preserved-in-amber either. Clothes in which you wouldn't look a fraud if you chipped your French manicure. Or even ate a Kit Kat.
opinions?
literaly, missing the point of having fun by playing the part of 'ladylike'. There is a completly fresh attitude on basic looks, one needs to get creative and have fun, with humour and lightness. this is not the typical idea of ladylike, on the contrary.. the attitude is a teenager trying to dress as a little lady, ending up in joyfull -and unexpected- 'mistakes'.
even Versace, Cavalli and Versus adopted the ladylike mood for f.w. 04-05, that was a (pleasant) surprise B)
