I'm going to come right out and say it - Emma Stone's clothes in La La Land are a let-down.
I know, I know. They’re meant to be. She’s a struggling actress and this is a Modern Musical so a broke heroine doesn’t get to wear pricey frocks in the way she might have done in An Old Fashioned Musical.
But really? Couldn’t they have tossed us a morsel of marabou? Not even for the fantasy dance sequence?
I couldn't help viewing every twirly, sparkly number that came down the couture catwalks this week through a La La Land filter. The floaty chartreuse, mousseline one-shouldered floor length column with its big whooshy epaulette-bow at Giambattista Valli would have looked so good on Emma/Mia as she waltzed across the sky with Ryan. But no, wait. What about the red one?
Or maybe the pale blue ballgown at Dior with its spindly straps, sweetheart neckline and meadows of tiny embroidered flowers. Or the totally over the top but pink ruffled meringues at Ralph & Russo... There has been no shortage of swirling, misty, twinkly dresses. And feathers. Obviously. This is couture. It’s not always like this, though. Some recent seasons have been almost dour.
But just as Hollywood is falling back on the musical to distract the world from its political and social anxieties, fashion is chasing traditional glamour, perhaps because it doesn’t know any other way to soothe the world’s troubles, or perhaps because it’s become acutely conscious of how good chiffon and feathers look in slow-mo on Instagram.
Whatever the reasoning, unlike Hollywood, couture doesn’t have to temper its vision with reality. Admittedly, designers here often pay lip service to the concept of everyday life. But their understanding tends to be a bit inchoate.
So Maria Grazia Chiuri, the new creative director at Dior, talks about making the famous Bar Jacket lighter and more comfortable, which she has done triumphantly and wears it herself with jeans. But this is still a jacket that, even in its cheapest, ready-to-wear incarnation, costs around 3000 pounds. Quintuple that for a made to measure, couture version. At other houses, notably Valli, daywear barely gets a look in at all.
It's an odd time to be looking at spring clothes, although specific seasons never intrude too much at couture. The weather in Paris is frightful - the air freezing, the sky a soupy grey and the shows distinctly chilly. My oversized, padded Uniqlo mittens - an emergency buy because my smart leather ones weren’t cutting it performance-wise - have been a mini-sensation with the street style photographers, especially when I demonstrate how I can fit my iPhone as well as my hand inside.
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Advertise with NZME.Even the clients feel its bite - after a fashion. Swaddled in fur from the hips up and often almost naked from the bronzed thigh down, they perch on their chairs, expressions even more frozen than usual. It’s hard to ascertain how many here are buying, or how many have stayed away, deterred by the grim faced security guards outside some shows. (The government has drafted in extras, mainly as a PR gesture to encourage those in fear of a Kim Kardashian-style burglary.)
Thank heavens, then, for the catwalks, where all is as gauzy as a Fred and Ginger dance-athon - even at Chanel, where, explained Karl Lagerfeld, the initial inspiration for his silhouettes was Giacometti's graceful but austere Spoon Woman. If Lagerfeld entertained any ideas of tapping into the anguish conveyed in Giacometti's sculptures, it didn't survive the edit.
True, the elegance here was glacial - thanks to the pastels of those opening tweed suits, and the steely satins and silver beading of the evening wear, amplified by the shards of mirror that dominated the catwalk. But there was also an old-school exuberance. Crystal-encrusted dresses were knee deep in vanilla, mauve or shell-pin feathers. Beaded lattice work sheaths were topped with feathery capes or panels of eau-de-nil or pink satin.
In other hands, it might have been an unholy mess, especially given the deep inverted folds running from the waistbands to the tops of the thigh, which gave the skirts the (very faintest) outline of Giacometti’s spoon sculpture.
But here it was chic and bold - at times reminiscent of the lush yet minimalist architectural gowns Jackie Kennedy wore to state dinners, especially the dress with the paper bag waist. At other moments it simply seemed to hark back to the Busby Berkeley era. Either way, I hope at least one of those Chanel frocks makes it to the Oscars this year. They really would look lovely in slow-mo.
- The Daily Telegraph
