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PARIS - Stella McCartney opened the proceedings at the Paris collections yesterday with a show that was as clear and confident as it looked lovely to wear.
It's no secret that this designer struggled to find her feet designing under her own name following a hugely successful stint at Chloe during the late 1990s.
She has now well risen to her new role.
In an autumn/winter season which has so far been notable as much for ostentatious furs as any innovative design expertise, McCartney's famously antipathetic stance rang out loud and clear as she sent out huge tufted knits that looked equally as warm as anything created in real animal skins and far less bourgeois.
The designer teamed these oversized designs with feather-light and conversely brief chiffon petticoat dresses that merely peaked out from beneath the hems as models walked only emphasising any play on scale.
The message of a fashionably lithe young woman in clothing that positively swamps her fragile form was established further by the skirt length which was resolutely short throughout.
Lean limbs were nude on the catwalk and seemed all the more perfect for the fact that spike-heeled ankle boots only added to their preternatural length.
McCartney does not take her fashion overly seriously which, in a city which generally has only the greatest reverence for matters sartorial, was also refreshing to see.
More roomy sweaters, zip-fronted cardigans and scarves came complete with snowflakes and sweet polar bears marching across their chunky-knit surface.
If the boyfriend sweater is by now an integral part of this particular designer's repertoire, so too is tailoring.
Heavy wool coats with oversized lapels and more that scaled up the tunic silhouette that is currently the order of the day were effortlessly stylish in black and navy and made more of a statement in burnt orange.
This show, like many others this week, begged the question: how many women out there would ever dare to wear shocking pink? It seems only apposite that the autumn/winter 2007 season is likely to be dominated, for the most part, by more sober hues but this is at least one exception that proves that rule.
In McCartney's case everything from dropped crotch all-in-ones with racer backs to petticoat dresses with ruffled, Fortuny-pleat skirts came out in this vivid shade which more than pays lip-service to the accents of neon that the 1980s were famous for and which looks great on the catwalk but in real as opposed to fashion life may prove something of a challenge.
Late the previous evening, Hussein Chalayan continued his study of mechanical clothing in a collection which included light-up shift dresses and glass helmets.
In this instance colour was more muted - antique metallics, black, ivory and a particularly cute blue and white horizontal stripe were all prominent.
Chalayan's view of modern femininity is essentially gentle meaning that the play on power dressing that has been seen elsewhere in both Paris and, before that, Milan, was never likely to make it onto his catwalk.
A cape attached to a wide-brimmed hat that framed its wearer's face like a blossoming flower and tailoring with a tulle overlay emphasised a pure, and resolutely non-confrontational take on womanhood as did narrow shouldered shifts and an end section of slender patch-worked dresses with handkerchief hems.
- INDEPENDENT
