Chanel
The great craftsman Karl Lagerfeld turned concrete into couture. The designer looked to Le Corbusier — the doyen of Modernist architecture — in a brutalist-meets-baroque collection. Clothes were molded around models’ bodies in coatdresses over skirts and shorts with tile-like detailing. It was a creative duality that reached its pinnacle in the finale with seven-month pregnant model bride Ashleigh Good enshrouded in an egg-shaped richly embroidered white gown. Maternity chic, anyone?
Schiaparelli
Marco Zanini’s collection for Schiaparelli was a camp menagerie of furs, feathers and animal prints. There were poodles on pleats, nesting pigeons on high-waisted trousers, squirrels and rats and power dressing furs and boleros. Meanwhile, the outlandish Stephen Jones headwear brought eccentric flamboyance to a daring show.
Valentino
Designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli went easy breezy with see-through flesh-revealing gowns. It was 21st century dressing via Pre-Raphaelite classicism and Roman goddesses. Indeed, front-rower Kim Kardashian with her abundant Venus-like assets might well struggle to embody the spirit of this collection.
You might wonder how astronaut-style jumpsuits and 18th Century Marie Antoinette-inspired dresses would make their way into the same show, but designer Raf Simons did just that. It was the designer’s masterful modernism which was the common thread that wove its way through the house’s iconic Fifties bar jacket to Edwardian coats and flight suits.
