Paris: Altered Fashion States

By CATHY HORYN
ochas spring 2012.

Tonight I met Stella McCartney for a drink at the Hemingway bar at the Ritz and a waiter chattily expressed the view that the buildup for the Paris collections had been begun days before the actual shows. I’m inclined to agree, though I’m not sure what accounts for the buildup or even if there is anything to it.

Ms. McCartney, dressed in a houndstooth top and black stretch pants, immediately drew attention from a group of American women, one of whom said she had been a fan of her dad’s since she was three. The daughter of the cute Beatle must hear that a lot. Anyway, she happily agreed to join them for a picture. Ms. McCartney, the mother of four, certainly had a fan club in the bar, with several other American women saying how much they liked her clothes. “I’m half American,” she reminded them with a laugh.

There have been only a handful of shows but the past two days have been packed with previews (Lanvin, Balenciaga) and meetings with designers (Alessandra Facchinetti, formerly at Gucci and Valentino, who is doing a new inexpensive line, Uniqueness, that will be offered for sale immediately on the Web and has no seasons). On Tuesday night, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler were here to show a short film by Harmony Korine and then attend a small dinner party at Vanessa and Victoria Traina’s apartment on Avenue Foch.
Dries Van Noten spring 2012.Valerio Mezzanotti for The New York TimesDries Van Noten spring 2012.

I loved the Korine film, though I had a feeling the humor wouldn’t make sense to anyone not familiar with the American south. Filmed in Nashville, it featured two girls dressed in some of Proenza’s fall clothes, with surreal masks and Indian headdresses, and a big-bellied good old boy who kept up a stream of talk. I kept thinking how completely un-self-conscious he was, and also how isolated people are in their worlds.

Dries Van Noten used photo prints of cities—Los Angeles at night, the Las Vegas strip—to somewhat mysterious effect. On black cotton dresses and full skirts, the images had a displaced quality, and really didn’t resemble prints. Mixed into this strong, romantic collection were nature prints, skirts with a fit-and-flare shape, toreador jackets in black and navy cotton with black embroidery, and loose silk dresses.

At Rochas, Marco Zanini evoked a sugary 1950s glamour with pale green and taupe dresses in pristine layers of organza with kerchiefs, French twists and cat-eye glasses. While the mood wasn’t “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” despite the scarves and a few severely chic black dresses, the clothes projected a type of woman indifferent to small concerns, like paying the rent. The bags, worn on straps across the body, were about the size of thin coin purses.

 http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/