Paris Fashion Week: "I imagined a woman with a playful and curious mind, constantly dreaming of adventure," is how designer Naoki Takizawa for Issey Miyake described the inspiration for his autumn/winter collection at Paris Fashion Week yesterday.
Shown in the new Quai Branly Museum dedicated to African and Asian arts and civilisations due to open in June, the show was a display of technical artistry and craftsmanship with its vision of clothes for modern life.
The use of leather was a high point. Breastplates sculpted to the female form, trenchcoats, parkas and quilted jackboots had all the power and suggestion of military attire, but with a new urban elegance. The designer's focus on fabrics was assured and innovative in colour blocked wools or ribboned jackets, as well as skirts made of layers of cut-out pleats. Multicoloured mountaineering cord was used, Masai-style, to decorate silk dresse, whiles spray-painted faces lent a tribal air. And there were chic, black, bamboo bags.
Vivienne Westwood told an interviewer backstage that she was expensive, so not to ask cheap questions. Season after season, she manages to combine the most extravagant flights of fancy - in fabrics slashed, pleated, wrapped, swagged, folded, pointed and twisted - with a perfect little Glen check jacket or a wrap khaki dress that might tempt the average working woman. Watching the show, it was hard not to think that if you wanted a black velvet pannier dress and matching visor, you might need to widen the door frames.
Marithe and Francois Girbaud own one of France's most successful clothing companies, having made their name with US-style jeans more than 30 years ago. Now they have over 3,000 outlets worldwide and their brand is the mainstay in Ireland of Diffusion (which celebrates 25 years in the business in Howth tonight).
From their huge collection yesterday on a rocking rodeo theme - all Stetsons, cowboy boots and swinging skirts - it's easy to see why they are so popular. They do great jackets, many skirted and worn over flouncy, colourful layers in everything from crushed silk to black satin. There were pinafore dresses, sparkly denims and mannish suits worn with insouciance. However, jaggedy, asymmetrical hemlines - the only jarring note - often spoiled the sheer commercial polish of it all.
