Muy lejos de Hollywood....

Fashion Review Far From Hollywood By CATHY HORYN Published: January 25, 2007

PARIS François Guillot/AFP - Getty Images TAKING FLIGHT From the Dior show in Paris, a John Galliano gown, tucked and tiered with intricate origami detail. SINCE the most effective Hollywood stylists are probably to be found behind the scenes, Rachel Zoe's presence in the front row at the Chanel haute couture show could only mean that she wanted people to see her. Putting aside the mental block that forms at the mention of the words Hollywood stylist, Rachel Zoe was giving herself a special role. This seems a good place to say that she is promoting a false assumption, namely that the couture collections are tailor-made for the red carpet. Actually, the couture collections are tailor-made for about 500 people in the world who have the means or the connections to get an $80,000 dress, and the rest is just ballyhoo to sell the cheaper commercial stuff. True, one or two houses will specially make dresses for the Oscars, as Chanel did for Penelope Cruz for the Golden Globes. But the red carpet is really a concession to middle American tastes; if you stopped to analyze it long enough, if you added up the number of ruched or beaded dresses trucking down the carpet, you wouldn't have Paris or even Hollywood. You'd have the suburbs of Detroit on a good night. And that's not a put-down to Detroit; it's a statement that many affluent people nowadays have access to stylish clothes. Jean Luce Huré for The New York Times Stage Presence A Chanel wool bouclé coatdress.

Haute couture is a different game. Not only do you need piles of money, but you have to able to project yourself into a candy-pink pencil suit with what looks like a Japanese origami bird coming off the back. This was the essence of John Galliano's couture show for Dior, a feat of artistry and contemporary imagination. Of course, a stylist can ask to have the bird removed (not wishing to solicit comparisons to Bjork's famous dead swan outfit), and a house will do that, since the purpose of couture is to suit the client. But the stylist, by reason of self-interest and limited vision, will never be able to duplicate the experience of the couture show. That's why couture stands apart more and more from the red carpet. It is, in fact, everything that the red carpet is not. It is strange, difficult, emotionally affecting and accessible to relatively few. Witness the gloomy brilliance of Riccardo Tisci's clothes for Givenchy, shown on Tuesday evening on a wet stone floor, with the models dragging their long silk trains. On the whole, the point of view was immature. Yet the cut and the elongated line of a navy suede coat, rippling softly down the front and worn with a trailing skirt in navy silk, left no doubt that Mr. Tisci was proposing a distinct silhouette. This has been a season of the salon, with Mr. Galliano literally evoking the dove gray atmosphere of Dior, and Karl Lagerfeldopening the Chanel show by rolling out a cream-colored carpet and ending the presentation with the staff of the house, including the heads, or premières, of the workrooms, seated class-portrait-style opposite the audience.

François Guillot/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images An exotic geisha look from Dior. In a collection that was easily his best for Dior, and certainly his most coherent, Mr. Galliano did not spare Paris embroiderers, who gave him dragonflies and tiny, three-dimension birds, or his fabric suppliers, who made him gazar and organdy in dense triple weights, or his seamstresses and tailors, who stitched, pleated and pressed the origami folds so that they were immaculate and perfectly integrated into the whole outfit. But what you mainly felt about Mr. Galliano's work this season was how original the colors were: the sugary pinks, the lime and sea-foam greens, the shades of brown darkening to black on a long dress formed by ribbon strips of fabric that had been inspired by Japanese baskets. From the point of view of someone who is not artistic, it was daunting to realize that these colors did not spring from a book or a painting but, rather, from Mr. Galliano's mind. That's one difference between a designer and a couturier. Another is the ability to give a new proportion at the right moment. This was Mr. Lagerfeld's strength this season, though he, too, had amazing colors like a purple heliotrope gray and a creamy white with a hint of blue. In nearly every dress, including mini-coatdresses and long evening numbers, the waist was slightly higher than normal and belted, so that the legs looked longer. Mr. Lagerfeld imparted a vertical line in other ways: with a jacket made entirely from handmade strips of tweed braid; with dresses that had sheer bodies ribbed with piped organdy or tulle, and a beautiful two-piece leopard-print silk dress traced at the hem in silver embroidery. In nearly 25 years at Chanel, Mr. Lagerfeld said it was the first time he had thought to use the print.

Jean Luce Huré for The New York Times Spring Fever Giorgio Armani's embroidered silk dress inspired by India.

Valentino, in his 45th year in fashion, delivered a superb collection, opening with a floaty ivory satin jacket and matching cutout skirt. Everything about the clothes, loosely inspired by a show he did in 1968, suggested lightness, from the dominance of white to the youthful volumes and cloudlike coats. Valentino frustrates when he piles things on — the lips too red, the gowns too embellished. Not this time. A slim, many-tiered dress in white silk looked elegant and easy, while the grainy and ottoman textures of the cream fabrics seemed to pay homage to Robert Ryman. Christian Lacroix seemed mired in weird proportions and colors. Jean Paul Gaultier's Catholic procession of ethereal drapes and stained-glass embroidery was fun and imaginative. I've never seen a couture bride look like Jesus. The collection had a kitsch quality, but also a modern glamour. The striking thing about Giorgio Armani's maharajah-inspired silks, some embroidered with semiprecious stones, was the shape they imparted. This was a deft collection, though not just because it involved more Parisian heft than we've seen from Mr. Armani. It worked because he had something new to say in the cut, clearly conveyed by a simple dress in beige micro-check silk with a narrow, elongated waist and an exaggerated shoulder. The same line appeared in jackets. When told before the show that a silver embroidered gown seemed bound for the Oscars, Mr. Armani looked critically at the dress and smiled. Through a translator, he said, "Maybe for a maharajah, but not the Oscars."

Copyright by the New York Times 2007 :::