It's an intriguing fact of fashion that you can be regarded as a hip and cool designer whether you are in your twenties or in your sixties. Yesterday two designers on the catwalk demonstrated that there is no generation gap if you've got the look right.
Stella McCartney at Chloe is still a fledging designer compared to the experience of Emmanuel Ungaro, who has been in business for 35 years. Yet both of them are the labels of choice for the young, hip fashionable celebrity.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Dido and Jennifer Lopez are Ungaro fans, while Madonna, Kate Moss and Chloe Sevigny will be spotted in Chloe.
Stella McCartney's collections are demonstrating a growing maturity with each season. Yesterday she showed a girls-in-pearls look for Chloe was that anything but classic in execution, but looked sophisticated all the same. She used an innovative three-dimensional wavy sepia print on dresses and tops and sprinkled freshwater pearls over the shoulders. Pearls also cascaded down the bodies of sweaters.
The show featured McCartney's familiar, lean funky tailoring but she added trims of fake fur. In fact there was quite a lot of fake fur, some of it spangled with silver embroidery. It was a surprising development as she is renowned for her anti-fur and anti-leather stance. It is an issue she feels passionately about and is rumoured to have influenced her decision not to join forces with Gucci.
One would have thought that even using fake fur would have been a contradiction of her views.
Nevertheless, there were sexy and less controversial lingerie corsets teamed with denim, and lovely creamy fitted dresses and bustiers lavishly covered in grassy, organic embroidery. The look was elegant, yet brandished just the right amount of street cred.
Ungaro's collection, which closed with the enchanting sight of a little ringlet-haired girl jumping up from the audience to chase the soap bubbles falling on the catwalk, was as seductive as it was cool. He may be in his late sixties but Ungaro is very well informed by his young design team.
For instance, he helped make corsages fashionable this season and is obviously hoping to repeat the success with the oversized bow trimming glamorous little black dresses in his new collection.
Romance is always in the air at Ungaro, whether it is the pretty cherry blossom print or the fancy frills of his blouses and long evening gowns. There was also a little of the classic tailoring in the black and white check or Donegal tweed suits, but the cut and swing of his jacket and the big patent black corsages gave the look just enough of a fresh young spirit to make him one of the must-have designers of the moment.