Paris thrummed with a crazy up-for-it energy today: Pride threaded from Place d’Italie through the Latin Quarter to a heavily marshaled Bastille, while brocantes and vide-greniers colonized sardine-packed stretches of the Left Bank. The weather was balmy and it seemed like everyone in this city was on its streets. It was super-fun, with the only downside being that traffic was even more bananas than usual. This made the decision to place this 2pm Vivienne Westwood collection 7km and a good 40-minute drive from the 1pm Noir show—which finished at 1:57pm—highly unfortunate.
Thanks to Lime I arrived just in time, and found Andreas Kronthaler at the front of the lineup. “It’s about summer,” he said. “It’s all about what you want to wear.” Kronthaler added that this was the first collection since his wife’s passing in which he felt he had properly found his way into continuing Westwood’s compulsion to use fashion to carry a message. “This is my way of putting out a message through the world,” he said, referring to a renewed collaboration with the suicide-prevention charity Body & Soul.
By a smidgen past 2:30pm the show had to start—Hermès was next, l’apogée de la culture—so the traffic-snarled Noir latecomers could not be accommodated: this was a shame for them. The collection shared plenty of the anarchic DTF energy the streets were alive with. Paisley platforms featured devil’s horns, badges proclaimed BOYS ❤️ MY SWAG, and the clothes were carnivalesque and carnal. Leopard bloomers were paired with skewed vests in what was advertised as “Luxury Jersey.” Lightning-strike budgie-smugglers came with a tangerine lilo, while a similarly electrified bikini was wrapped in mesh. Penis charms hung like trophies from golden knits under gingham bustiers. Pannier skirts in hyper-sized gingham were worn against frilled satin blouses with necklines to the navel.
Kronthaler’s Barbès-bought bazin cottons brought vivid, lustrous color to voluminous nightshirts, while light tulle corsetry floated over and under the body, entwined in swooshy duets with rich satin skirts, headpieces and bodices. There were heavily worked fringed coat dresses and a riff on the 17th-century-derived “Cheat Jacket,” featuring good cloth where the eye could see it and humbler fabric in less visible physical sites.
A pumping soundtrack was live-rhymed by punk poet Stuart Mckenzie, and through it we occasionally heard samples of Westwood speaking. “You get ideas by developing ideas that already exist,” said the great subversive historicist. There was the famous 1988 moment on a big British talk show when Westwood brought on models (including my ex-wife) in minicrinis and the audience found them hilarious. “If they don’t stop laughing,” said the embarrassed host, “I shall tell the next person not to come on.” Westwood didn’t seem so put out. “You can laugh, but look as well,” she said. “It’s really great.” At the finale today, Kronthaler landed a kiss on Mckenzie as the last model exited and Hermès-goers rushed for the door.