Global General

Paris' menswear week evaporates in record heat

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-06-27 07:00

PARIS - Paris' spring-summer 2012 menswear shows melted into the past on Sunday, wrapping up in a pool of perspiration on the year's hottest day yet.

The five-day-long menswear extravaganza kicked off Wednesday under cloudy skies and usually chilly temperatures for June, but by Sunday thermometers had soared to 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) -- a nightmare scenario for a crowd of elaborate dressers reluctant to remove blazers, corsets or caused by his words and actions.

Model wear a creations by US fashion designer Thom Browne collection as part of spring-summer 2012 men's fashion, presented in Paris, Sunday, June 26, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Two days later, Galliano's longtime aide Bill Gaytten was named creative director at the Gibralter-born designer's eponymous label after a lackluster show there that felt like Galliano Lite.

Though the fashion elite might make a break for it now, many top editors, stylists and journalists will re-converge on Paris in a week's time for the city's rarified haute couture displays, where made-to-measure dresses start at the price of a small car and go vertiginously up from there.

Thom Browne

Normally models grumble when they have to wear something that hides their faces, but at Browne's cross-dressing, "Cabaret"-infused show, the relief of those whose features were obscured behind the fringed lampshade hats was almost palpable.

You could hardly blame them: Even for male models, who are used to donning both the hideous and the sublime, photos immortalizing them in beaded flapper dresses worn with sock garters are a hard thing to live down.

A models wear a creation for US fashion designer Thom Browne collection as part of spring-summer 2012 men's fashion, presented in Paris, Sunday, June 26, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

There were also hourglass-shaped trench coats in navy pinstripes, with a swishy fringe in lieu of epaulettes, shrunken bowler hats hung with a bride's veil and beaded jumpsuits accessorized with knee-length ropes of pearls.

The heavily inked arms of a tattoo-embellished model emerged from a crop top covered in pearly white beads, and you could practically smell his relief that he was also wearing one of the face-shrouding lampshade hats.

But say what you will about Browne's clothes -- which this season inverted the usually truncated proportions of his trademark shrunken suits -- there's no disputing the mtill, for all its discomforts, the show was at least memorable -- and that's more than you can say for the more conventional catwalk displays, which by the last day of fashion week have already blended together into an amorphous fog as thick as pea soup.

Lanvin

Paris' most romantic label tapped into the raw emotion of "Wuthering Heights," its models like modern-day Heathcliffs racing breathlessly across the moors in billowing silks and lustrous microfibers.

After veering into edgier, more hardcore territory in recent seasons, Sunday's collection was pure, unadulterated feeling.

The looks -- windblown parkas, their silken hoods trailing behind like scarves, and suits in a rainbow of dusty hues -- faintly quivered with raw sentiment.

Even the more stringent looks that opened the show -- inspired, menswear designer Lucas Ossendrijver said, by security guards because "everybody loves a man in uniform" -- breathed poeweet spot between strength and sentiment without veering into the overtly feminine territory that has swept other catwalks here, where the man skirt has emerged as a major trend.

Lanvin's khaki tunics in the thinnest of leathers, its perfectly cut pleated trousers, its sculptural double-breasted jackets all managed to be at once manly and emotive.

Paul Smith

The audience may have been sweltering, but the British designer's models looked as cool as cucumbers.

Wearing slim, colorblock suits made from panels of slightly different shades of blue, with sleeveless vests layered over their blazers, their faces fresh and shine-free, the models seemed to embody both definitions of the word "cool."

The audience of fashion insiders, on the other hand, could be taken to collectively define the verbs "to broil," "to melt" or even the noun "sauna."

At the Smith show, which is held in an old convent that has the asimple trip down the catwalk at Japanese menswear label Rynshu had the Black Eyed Peas' rapper blushing.

Sporting a snug leather blazer, a pair of cropped harem pants in shiny black and clunky combat boots, will.i.am shuffled up the runway, shooting sheepish glances at the photographers' pit as the audience encouraged him with a round of applause.

The performer is collaborating with the brand on a line christened "Will.I.Am x Rynshu" for next spring-summer and has worn clothes from last year's collection in a music video. He and the other Black Eyed Peas are in Paris for a series of concerts here.

Sunday's collection had a kind of eccentric rocker vibe to it, with lots of second-skin leather pants and slashed black jeans. In fact, it was hard to imagine any man without a platinum record daring to don the blazer covered in white sequins that glimmered like fish scales.

Arnys

The house that has come to define Left Bank elegance delivered beautiful clothes tailored for men of taste and leisure, those who take breakfast by the pool before heading out for a spot of clay-court tennis followed by an unhurried multi-course lunch.

Striped silk jackets looked like they had not-so-distant origins as pajama tops, while Key Lime pie colored trousers were clearly destined for lounging.

The sole faux pas were the neo-Jodhpurs, linen pants that ballooned through the thigh and clung like plaster casts to the models' calves.

The show was held in a postage-stamp sized park, and the models had to change in a bus parked outside the wrought iron gates. You could tell it was the tail end of the shows because the models were listless and sleepy-eyed and surlily refused photographers' shouted out orders to "look up!"

"These guys are really a band of monkeys," quipped a particularly vociferous and outraged Italian photographer.

Songzio

Korean label Songzio delivered a convincing collection of suits in black and white linen that felt like summery variations on the tuxedo. Unlike the low-crotched carrot pants that have swept Paris runways, the high-water trousers here were slim through the thighs and flared at the ankle. The outerwear, biker jackets in paper-thin leather and calf-length linen trenches, were fetching. The whole collection was quietly lovely, with the models' hair -- slicked back with egg yolk yellow paste -- the sole extravagant touch.