Bonjour my petit pois ! We have the last of out previews from the European Style Capitals for this season, well for next season but let’s not confuse matters. This time as though it needed an introduction, of course, the city of lurve, Paris.
First, for our delectation is one of the oldest Fashion Houses and hottest tickets for all Paris Menswear Shows, Louis Vuitton, under the style direction of uber talented Brit Kim Jones. Jones has shown he’s not only come along way since his collaborations as a young Designer with the like of TOPMAN and sports brand Umbro, but has finely tuned his talents to produce some of the most sublime collections in recent years from the house of Vuitton. For Autumn/Winter 14 the trend driven show wasn’t as obviously as past seasons, opting for letting the Clothes do the talking, but was loosely inspired by Kim’s trip to the Atacama Desert of South America.
Louis Vuitton
On to one of the busiest men of the Paris Men’s shows Kris Van Assche, with the first of his two presentations of the week, up first is his own signature collection. Here we shown a totally wearable and rather commercial range from Van Assche, offering us colour, patterns in herringbone and eye catching dizzy dots.
Kris Van Assche
Then with a hop, skip and literal jump over to the second of Monsieur Van Assche’s collections, told you he was busy, in Dior Homme. Where if we were in any doubt as to his Dotty tendencies, they were confirmed here. We were offered them in Suits, shirts, shoes, ties, honestly you name it, it was covered in dots, but please don’t be put off, he managed to pull this off, to quote Mr Kenny Everett, it was all done in the best possible taste !
Dior Homme
Now then, Ami’s, Alexandre Mattiussi continues his assault on being the favourite label of choice among the style press and it isn’t surprising as to why. He’s proving to be a Jedi Master in the art of producing collections that have that simply, unassuming, stylish charm about them, but all the time screaming, your life won’t be complete without me in it !
Ami
Into the final straights, we have a name who over the past couple of seasons has been making a lot of the right noises while showing in Milan, but for this season has made the move to Paris. Turkish born, Umit Benan, each season, selects a character to base his collection around. In the past, we have seen such inspiration as the taxi drivers of his home Capital Istanbul, or Vintage Rockers or even Investment Banker. However, this season we looked to, Jackie Robinson, who? The first African Amercian Baseball Star. So the presentation had a very 1940’s feel to it from the political references to the lack of freedom Robinson had to put up way at this time.
Umit Benan
And so to the final of our designers, we started with a Brit designing for a French Fashion house and we finish with a British Designer showing in Paris. No less then Sir Paul Smith, who relaxed his silhouettes this season and drew inspiration for his collection from one could say, another iconic figure, in Jim Morrison. So no surprises when I tell you there was a distinct ROCK feeling to Smith’s show.
Paul Smith
