Mihara Yasuhiro

9International Herald TribuneMo n d ay , J u ly 2, 2 0 07

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Mille-feuille! Thousands of layersA S P E C I A L R E P O R T

i h t .co m /s t y l ePhotographs from the Paris shows.

YVES SAINT LAURENTHER MESRAF SIMONS

Me n ’s Fashion

M ihara Yasuhiro, the Japanesedesigner, showed a powerful

collection full of pieces that foundthe perfect balance betweeninventive and wearable.

The sporty collection includeddouble front-zip track suits, sweaterswith pixilated designs andfascinating computer-manipulatedflower print tops that morphed intoorganic-looking ribcages. Tailoredsuits that from far away lookedstraightforward revealed, on closerexamination, a back cut out innetting, stretch fabric inserted at thearmpit or a track suit waistline.

Already known in Asia for hispopular sneaker collaborations withPuma, the designer, whose label,Miharayasu hiro, had some moresophisticated looks in his repertoire.The white tailored shirt thatseamlessly ended in a waistcoat orthe black button-down short-sleevetops that finished in an elastic hem,scooping longer in the back for a snugfit, were examples from a designerwith a bright future ahead of him.

— Jessica Michault

Strik inga balance

There is only one way to cook up a fashionshow this season and that is to play withdifferent layers. The mille-feuille ap-proach — a thousand ways to arrange

wafer-thin slices — is the overwhelming theme ofsummer 2008 menswear collections.

The recipe is to take sheer sweaters and layerthem over shirts that are themselves half trans-parent or to have translucent nylon jackets inter-act with misty voile tops.

‘‘It feels free,’’ said Raf Simons, who providedthe most thought-provoking version of the layeredlook. ‘‘People so encapsulate themselves and onlyinform themselves on the computer,’’ said the Bel-gian designer. ‘‘It is a safe environment withoutrisks, but there is a need to get out.’’

The designer’s philosophical vision wasequally a practical one. The clothes he sent outtook risks, with tunics layered like dresses, butresolutely masculine, shown with sporty, colorfulsandals and boots and with the giant backpacksthat symbolized explorative travel and gave solid-ity to the silhouette.

Everything seemed fresh and different: shortscut loose with a double layer that could be in an un-likely fabric, like taffeta. ‘‘Material world’’ wasprinted in faded letters on the tunics and shortsthat opened the show. That too had a double mean-ing: a deep exploration of fabrics from nylon to cot-ton and being in touch with the diverse universe.

Another inventive idea was drawstrings to cre-ate silhouettes, puckered to shape the waist orpulled in at the knees. Strong, mannish colorsfrom pine green to ink blue were interspersed withorange and yellow to give a frisson of multi-ethni-city. After recent collections of precise tailoring,Simons as fashion explorer was a fresh departure.

The art of fashion is to make things look likethey were meant to be. But at Yves Saint Laurentthe designer Stefano Pilati tackled art with a cap-ital ‘‘A,’’ as both he and his models wore shoessplattered with paint to walk a canvas runway.This Jackson Pollock wannabe look also appearedon shorts and pants and an artsy jacket had in-serts of crude and chaotic patchwork.

Since Pilati has decided to pitch an intellectu-al/arty look for YSL, the silhouettes were dedic-ated to ‘‘work wear,’’ meaning roomy painter’ssmock shapes and short, boxy jackets. The alter-native was the loose sweaters curving up at thefront. In this fashion comfort zone, nothing wasfitted to the body and, although the clothes sug-

gesting laid-back sophistication, they were not de-signed for seduction.

Art was a pitfall for Viktor & Rolf, whose DavidHockney-inspired collection did not make ‘‘a big-ger splash’’ with its feeble print of swimming poolripples on a shirt or its puerile schoolboy jacketswith an outline like varsity braiding. Such themeshave to be as deeply felt as Hockney’s original workwas, expressing the lapping warmth of the WestCoast and its sexual freedom, to be anything otherthan a fashion gimmick.

There was the Hockney look again — with signa-ture bow tie and owl glasses — at Paul Smith. Butat least the British designer understood the Hock-ney heritage better from ‘‘my own artist friendswhen we were young.’’ Bright colors and stripe andpolka dot patterns were dosed with beige tailoring.Only polo shirts and shoes added primary colors.It made for a relentlessly upbeat show but mixinglayers rather than just colors would have added a

further dimension and enriched the offering.La nvin’s show hit the spot, with its ultra-light

layers that had the slithering texture of nylon butwere, in fact, washed silk, bringing a luxurious butnever heavy feel from silk shirt to shiny metallicshoes. The designer Lucas Ossendrijver, workingwith Alber Elbaz, has lightened up Lanvinmenswear in every sense, making it not a havenfor tailoring but a play on elements of a masculinewardrobe. There were shorts of course (what isthe 2008 season without them?) and airy bow ties.But Lanvin caught that balance between formaland casual with its ocean colors from gray to deep-est blue and green and always with a literal lighttouch: a trickle of gleaming sequins down a tie oreven an other-worldy shimmer to a laptop case.

When Ann Demeulemeester opened hershow with a Marcel Duchamp interview on thesoundtrack and with DaDa printed across thechest, the heart sank. Not another designer influ-

enced by last year’s DaDa exhibition! But the Bel-gian designer used the inspiration to turn her ownnonconformist approach onto an intriguing riffon layers. And it worked beautifully.

Translating her poetic vision, De-meu lemeester’s inserted graphic deck chairstripes in black and white or fiery red to show anultra-long shirt flowing from under a shorter T-shirt with a thigh-length jacket as the top layer.Cardigans partnering the jackets, a pinwheelbrooch on a lapel and soft pants with a narrowcuff all made for easy but stylish summer wear.

At Her mès, the whisper-quiet luxury was atouch dull since blouson jackets with rich colorsand textures — a zingy lime green or russet suede— were too much the focus. A raincoat with adropped belt and v-necked sweaters, often withsheer stripes, were other sartorial alternatives.But the designer Véronique Nichanian under-stands that the essence of Hermès is supreme lux-ury and from an ultra-fine sweater to short-sleeved shirts in necktie-patterned voile, she nev-er betrayed that heritage, yet made it seem like acasual, summery collection.

‘‘It ’s about trying to dress up and feel good aftersomeone has broken your heart,’’ said the Aus-tralian tailor Jsen Wintle. His tailoring was norevolution, but he used subtle codes of slashes,seaming and even an openwork line on a sweaterto point straight to that broken heart.

Who would have guessed that behind V é ro -nique Branquinho’s modest, feminist façadethere is a rock chick longing to get out? From themoment that some Antwerp rockers started theirperformance, the designer abandoned her ‘‘f ilmnoi r’’ heroes of past seasons in favor of a scruffysloppiness of big lacy sweaters, rolled-up shorts,pajama-striped pants, metallic trenches wornwith flat toe-hold sandals. But this was not a showto top the fashion charts.

When clothes require detailed attention, a pre-sentation is more practical than a show. The lushgreenery of palm leaves and bright flowers cre-ated a tropical landscape for Ken zo’s models.Riffs on shirt fronts, from the tucked dickie to tinypleats at the front, deserved close inspection.

‘‘I adore men in short shorts,’’ claimed SoniaRykiel as she watched from the front row the suits,where the tailored mini-pants rose from soberBermuda length to high thigh. Rykiel Homme,with its knitwear heritage, scored with sheersweaters, while the shorts suit is a solution forscorching city summers.

Suzy Menkes is the fashion editor of the Interna-tional Herald Tribune.

‘I wanted to turn the page,’’ said Kris VanAssche (at right with model) to explain the

variations on a white shirt in his first DiorHo m m e collection. From the tiny tucks on thedickey front, through origami folds on a collarto a tracery of openwork stitches, the designer’sdebut collection was rich in detail. It was shownnot on the runway, but in a grand and gildedParisian mansion, the better perhaps tounderstand the flow of high-waist 1950s-inspired trousers from Christian Dior’s era.

In this 60th anniversary year, the master’staste, as seen in old portraits, appeared as sevenneckties — polka dot, Prince of Wales checks orknitted textures.

After Hedi Slimane, the previous designer,brought a minimalist, pencil-sharp look thatmade Dior menswear rock, this season lookedlike a conscious decision to turn away from allthat sleek modernity.

Van Assche’s concept of evening, day andmorning wardrobe was shown in groups of suitsor tuxedos and had some graphic elements in thetailoring or in the black-and-white trellis shoes,some embroidered with a caviar of beading.

But here is the conundrum: Can a romanticdesigner — who may, in fact, be nearer toChristian Dior’s own sensibility — give thecutting edge of tailoring and cool thatrejuvenated the brand? — Suzy Menkes

LAN VIN

Photographs by Chris Moore/Karl Prouse

PAUL SMITHA NNDEMEU LEMEESTER

JSEN WINTLE

MIHAR AYASUHIRO

Th eCollections Paris S u z y

Menkes

Dior Homme: Back to the gilded glory days

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