Paris Couture Fall 2008 - Ennui Rules The Runways

DAHLINGS -

After looking around at the rest of the shows in Paris, I find I have not much to say. So little originality, as the peasants like to say these days, "meh."

The Valentino show was, like the Chanel show, pleasant. I gather there is a new designer in charge, Alessandra Facchinetti, and she has a great deal to learn. While this traditional red gown was certainly the sort of thing one slavers over:






WHAT is one to make of this? Is the model wearing the box from the atelier's new air conditioner? Is this what all that "carbon footprint" nonsense is about?



Or perhaps her dress was missing and she had to hastily pull on a garment bag from backstage.

One has a sudden urge to tip her over, the way young hooligans do with cows out in the far country. Meanwhile, at the Gaultier show, one had the sense that the front row snored through most of this one:



Mon dieu, can't the man design more creatively than this? Just looking through the photos left me rigid with boredom.

That's that for your faithful correspondent...the rest of the shows do not bear writing about, and I'd much rather glance through fashion magazines while listening to the ocean.

Until we meet again,
Ciao,
Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog

Paris Couture Fall 2008: Dior Is Still King!

DAHLINGS –

It may come as a great shock to mon cher readers that your faithful correspondent was not in Paris for the Fall 2008 couture shows.

But it was far too tempting to spend the July 4th weekend at my sumptuous (featured in Architectural Digest) oceanfront mansion in the Hamptons. There, Bucky can frolic under my watchful eye, while I sit under a thick baby blue silk dupioni canopy (have to keep the sun away from my milk-white skin). The ocean roars against the sand, and I am tempted to think Deep Thoughts…

But then my head starts to ache.

In any event, tonight’s schedule includes the Halsey House Cocktail Gala in Southampton (one must to give the locals something interesting to look at). One can only hope that Kelly Ripa will not be there. A few too many White Russians (ugh) and America’s Sweetheart turns into the most vicious drunk you ever beheld. She’s tiny and cannot hold her liquor. How does poor Regis deal with her hangovers?

On to Paris!

What can one say? John Galliano for Dior absolutely, as you Americans say, “knocked the ball out of the parking lot.” An amazing collection, that harkened back to the rich, glamorous days when Dior himself designed.

But first, let me shake a little detritus off my high-heeled sandal: Christian Lacroix.



The man is obviously mired in thoughts of world disaster…what else would explain those HIDEOUS fashions and that dead-eyed make-up? The model looks like she has some sort of godawful disease on her body, not clothes. (Cathy Horyn of The New York Times used the priceless phrase “wall-eyed blondes,” for which I shall always worship her.) One supposes the man is designing for after the Apocalypse. Après Lacroix, le déluge.

The Chanel show was very ho-hum for yours truly, yes, pipe organs, metal, c’est la vie. Although I hardly think this is a silhouette most women would embrace:



But the Dior show! Ah, the Dior show.

I wish I’d had the good sense to fly to Paris for that one. Galliano outdid himself—the man understands that a woman has curves:





This number is one I intend to order for myself, although I think I will keep the right side opaque:



There was simply too much to choose from, and so many of the classic Christian Dior shapes: the wasp waist, the full circle skirt, sweeping gowns, and tulle!







For a femme such as moi, it added up to complete sensory overload. Even from a distance. But a delicious one! Brava, diva, brava!



Oh, dear, some tourist from Montauk has wandered onto my private beach…in madras plaid shorts, no less. Must run, dahlings, and get my pellet gun.

Ciao!

Elisa & Bucky the Wonderdog