PARIS — "They kept asking us to reconfirm we were coming because they said they had more requests that ever before," said Elizabeth von Guttman, an editor of System magazine, before the Anthony Vaccarello show.
Alexandre de Betak, the producer of the show, had noticed the same thing. "Are there more people here?'' he asked. "Yes, I think so. I could start it now, but they are still trying to get some of the audience sorted over there." He gestured with one hand down the glass-walled corridor of the Maison de la Radio, where Mr. Vaccarello's show was taking place, at some jostling on the benches. It was officially Day 1 of Paris Fashion Week.
Traditionally a travel-and-get-settled day between Milan and Paris populated by newer designers and their experimentalism (which often looks a lot like older experimentalism: see the blown-out shoulders, one-dimensional geometries imposed on three-dimensional bodies, and a suit sliced on the diagonal, the two halves then tied back together, at Jacquemus, one of the winners in the 2015 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers competition), Day 1 got a whole lot more attention this season, thanks to Mr. Vaccarello.
Rumor has it that he is in the running to take over at Saint Laurent if the brand parts ways with its current creative director, Hedi Slimane, an d a big chunk of the fashion crowd had pried themselves out of their hotel rooms to come check him, or rather his clothes, out.
What did they see?
Continue reading the main story Slide Show Anthony Vaccarello: Fall 2016 RTWCreditGuillaume Roujas/Nowfashion .
A parade of sex and Smokings: black ultra-miniskirts and coat dresses laced, corsetlike, at the groin or thigh, tops plunging to the navel, and armbands of faux diamonds that doubled as skirts for bling. There were ripped chain-mail leggings and wide-wale corduroy coats trimmed in rough-cut shearling; mesh minidresses and studded minidresses and minidresses pieced together from collages of leaves. Some even came encrusted with colorful sequin flowers. In Mr. Vaccarello's after-dark world, that's movement.
They weren't exactly subtle, and the formula (legs! skin! leather!) is not exactly new, but there is some enthusiasm about its rediscovery. If Eve were going clubbing in a strobe-lit Eden, they'd be just what she'd need.
Maybe that scenario is less far-fetched than it sounds.
Check out our complete Paris Fashion Week coverage here.
