The young French designer Christophe Decarnin at Balmain produced a collection which was the exact reverse of over-the-knee skirts and restrained, autumnal tones.
With its micro-minis, Sex Pistols’ tartans, sock-it-to-me glitz, cave-woman leathers and crystal-embroidered animal prints, the show had all the subtlety of a kick in the teeth with a pair of Dr Martens and could not have been further from the ethos of the founder of the house, Pierre Balmain, who believed in ‘elegance from simplicity’.
Decarnin’s microscopic shift dresses glittered with red and black lightning flashes or shiny, beaded tiger-stripes and were accessorized with spike-heeled, black suede booties, with a fringe of leather around the ankle.
Body-hugging tube dresses, which covered just enough to avoid infringing laws of public decency, were emblazoned with crystal leopard-prints. A black leather scrap of a dress, with a ragged hemline that could have been chewed by a woolly mammoth, was encrusted with big cat spots in silver mesh.
Metallic vests were worn with beaded ra-ra skirts, tinier than a tutu, or with skin-tight biker jeans in black leather; punk-style, red tartan, skinny drainpipes or scarlet, python-patterned trousers, with crystal and sequin-embroidered serpents snaking around the thighs.
For evening, hemlines dropped to the floor, but the skirts, split up to the thigh, displayed just as much leg as the pelmet-skirts. Long gowns in silk chiffon, printed in red and black leopard-print or a black and white mix of tiger-stripe and leopard-spot, featured taut, ruched bodices, tethered with one asymmetric, crystal-beaded strap at the neck.
The Paris fashion season, final stop on the international designer catwalk shows for next autumn/winter, continues today with shows by the British designers, Dame Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano for Christian Dior: the reclusive Martin Margiela; and the Japanese avant-gardist, Yohji Yamamoto, who is planning a fashion gala in Beijing in April to raise funds for his new Peace Fund which will benefit Chinese young designers and models.
Photographs by Jane Mingay
