Glass discovers new beginnings at Paris Fashion Week.
SS17 in Paris will go down in fashion history as four of high fashion’s biggest brand names take on new creative directors, with one in particular losing out on one of their own to a rival house. In the industry this signifies a crucial opportunity for regeneration or bust, dependent on how the new design heads approach the responsibility hanging over them.
VALENTINO, since 2008 the result of a design duo acclaimed for stylish synergy, is now a one-man show. Pier Paulo Piccioli is that man - the sole creative director whose partner in cloth since roundabout the millennium has found her self at the helm of rival fashion house, Dior. This puts both of the designers, who parted ways amicably, in positions of great importance in the industry.
Alone in his atelier for the first time since taking the reigns with his co-pilot in 2008, Piccioli didn’t lose his - or the brand’s - way, producing gowns with gravitas in grandeur for the darling buds of the jet-set.
DIOR. With a clear idea of what her Dior should be, Maria Grazia Chiuri - now flying solo for the first time ever in her directive design career after being partnered with Pier Paulo Piccioli during her 17 years at Valentino - delivered a Dior never seen before.
The first woman to ever take on the position in the brand’s 70 year history, the influence of a woman as creative commander-in-chief was galvanising - shifting the brand identity towards a deeper connection of what women want. Or, to be exact, what Chiuri thinks women should want. So by default, what she wants.
SAINT LAURENT’s newly appointed creative director, Anthony Vaccarello, was a rebel with a cause greater than that of his predecessor, Hedi Slimane.
When Hedi joined back in 2012, YSL desperately needed the youth-quaking creative pulse he nonchalantly drummed up through daring designs initially rebuked for being too grunge. That old black magic called grunge saw the brand report a revenue of 973.6 million Euros against 707.3m Euros the previous year by the time Hedi was rumoured to be bowing out last year. Now, on the heels of Hedi’s departure, comes Vaccarello’s turn to get put through his paces at an exhausting rate in the hope of making his mark, and a pretty penny for Kering in the long run.
He created dresses with a freewheeling sex appeal and credible confidence. The kind that would have Lou Lou de Falaise living, again.
LANVIN now has their first chéri bright spark since Jeanne Lanvin herself joined the Syndicat de la Couture in 1909, in the form of French designer Bouchra Jarrar.
Showing a sensitivity those before her seemed to lack resulted in beautifully conceived garments with a French predilection for sensual decadence in dress that appeared as Lanvin as ever. Jeanne would approve.
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