Olympia Le-Tan Fall/Winter 2015

By Liza Foreman

Olympia Le-Tan

Fall/Winter 2015

PARIS

Wearing a silvery shoe with a slither of a high heel that elevated the arch of the foot as high as a ballerina on points, a young model with legs as narrow as her stilettos, balanced a set of archaic looking books on her voluminous hair do and posed in a puffy frill of a skirt backstage.

But the books were actually little bags that the designer Olympia Le-Tan extended in kind to her guests this season.

They came clutching cardboard versions of the ornately decorated faux velvet designs that were named after books.

But what the fun loving designer, she who has also put the naughtiness back into fashion with her buxom Austrians and her saucy school girls in frills, has also extended is her range. In addition to the signature bags it now includes clothing that is just as fun.

And it is unique. No attempt is made to fit into the styles of the times or design what your average woman might want to wear. Here one finds saucy green leotards worn with tights, peaking from beneath a warm woollen jacket with puffy sleeves. Or a skirt that billows out like an amorphous sea creature submerged with the white layers of a water Lilly, its flyaway layers hinting at the ballerina twirling through the designer's mind this season, as per the show notes.

Hats were as out there as the cheeky outfits, and included a white feather crown that looked like something designed for a school play. The show was fun and frolicsome and non conformist too.

There were divas in slinky skirts and oversized belts and safari like attire given an Austrian twist. The crazy hats looked a little Schiaparelli. And indeed the collection was somewhat theatrical but also for the most part wearable.

As models walked under the vast ornately decorated ceilings of an old French salon, the voice of Kate Bush singing Babushka played in tune with the theme this season.

Her muse? A possessed pin up, like a ballerina on mushrooms or a demented Kate Bush, at once elegant, sexy, fierce and fragile .

Piano sonatas tinkered on a distant piano as the audience too their leave and the girls hung up their costumes for the night. This designer is prepared to beat her own path through the jungle of fashion and she does it wearing a dress.