Designer's new range eschews last season's sculptured shapes for fabrics highlighting movement of the body
High speed rail link notwithstanding, Paris fashion week still feels a long way from the Olympic village. After a triumphant summer of leotards and Lycra, Stella McCartney
returned to her day job on Monday, parading her newest collection on a
catwalk at one of her favourite venues, the Palais Garnier opera house.
But
the Olympic legacy was to make itself felt even here. First, there was
the presence in the best seats of the Team GB star trio of Victoria
Pendleton, Ellie Simmonds and Louis Smith, a significant post-Olympic
addition to the front row roll call of the beautiful, the cool and the
glamorous, led as always by Kate Moss. Second, it was noticeable that
Sir Paul McCartney, who rarely misses his daughter's catwalk shows, was
less besieged by photographers than usual. The great summer of London
2012 has overtaken the Beatle connection in the story of Stella's brand,
it seems.
The clothes had an ease and a freedom of movement which
suggested an unwillingness to return from a summer of sport to the
painstakingly constructed and narrowly defined aesthetic of catwalk
beauty. The sculptured shapes of last season made way for fabrics which
allowed the rippling movement of the body beneath to define the wearer's
silhouette.
For daytime, this meant micro-plisse pleating, the
tiny zigzag folds of which concertina to subtly expand and contract so
that the body creates the shape of the garment rather than being
imprisoned by set-in-stone measurements.
For evening, silk organza was cut on the bias, a technique which emphasises the sway and roll of the hips instead of constricting them into a wiggle. This new looseness of stride was emphasised by the shoes, which were flat or low-heeled. "Optimistic" was McCartney's timely word for the colours: apple green and Tropicana orange, a naive contrast to the rich, painterly blue of last season.
But fashion being six months ahead, the Olympics is
last year's news already, and McCartney dismissed the reference. The
sporty references, she pointed out, are always in her collection
–"that's part of who she is, the woman I dress". Instead, she said she
conceived the show as "about conversation between a man and a woman. I
wanted to capture that dialogue between the masculine and the feminine,
the boldness and directness of that, and also the fragility of it." What
this meant on the catwalk was outfits which each held within them a
quirk or contradiction. Some outfits had a different pattern on the back
view from that on the front. Very bold, flag-like arcs of colour were
used on ultra-delicate skeins of silk rib; a fitted bustier top was worn
over slouchy cropped trousers.
Contrast is at the heart of the
Stella McCartney brand. The lifestyle she sells is about glamour with a
work ethic; integrity with a sense of humour; London with a splash of
Paris. This was not an Olympic-influenced show, but – much better, this –
a collection from a Brit with a post-Olympic spring in her step.
Paul, Kate Moss and peruvian Mario Testino.
Stella McCartney turned the grand Opéra Garnier in Paris into her very
own catwalk as Kate Moss, Salma Hayek and father Sir Paul looked on.
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