Rahul Mishra Fall/Winter 2015

By Liza Foreman

Rahul Mishra Fall/Winter 2015

From his atelier in Northern Delhi, the designer Rahul Mishra creates elaborate embroideries and other designs with the help of scores of worker bees.

But for his second Paris Fashion Week outing, he used such techniques to create wearable ready to wear pieces rather than the avant garde shapes shown in Delhi last year as part of the Be Open exhibition in which he created more unusual designs with a luxury overseas market in mind, using Indigenous crafts. Here he took it and made it something ready to wear for wherever.

The designer showed a collection that, while it drew upon Indian heritage, sometimes also looked entirely elegant and western, as was the case with a short black woolen suit or knee length narrow dress with a round collar. Both would fit right in with any sophisticated designer wardrobe.

On the other hand, there was a delicacy and use of embroidery and choice of colors on some little cute pink and cream outfits that was sometimes quite modern Indian girl setting out for distant shores.

Tones were mostly neutral with the color coming in the form of the decoration.

There were some lovely details like embroidery shown on transparent mid riff panels, mirroring sari designs showing bare skin, and sometimes more elaborate highly decorative pieces like an almost graphic style embroidered three quarter length jacket that one might see worn at a wedding. Mishra said backstage: "I always believe God lies in the detail. At the same time Paris is very chic and understated and sophisticated. This is a rare balance in a city and one I am trying to strike in my work."

Many Indian designers stay too Indian when they go overseas but Mishra is going in the right direction with these beautiful textile works.

Veronique Branquinho Fall/Winter 2015

By Liza Foreman

Veronique Branquinho Fall/Winter 2015

Most of the time these days, fashion editors complain about trekking across town for fashion week shows but sometimes the discovery of unusual interiors selected as a venue by designers makes it a pleasure.

Such was the case on Monday when Veronique Branquinho chose a vacant Hausmann style apartment tucked behind Opera that was matched by an original show.

The building came complete with ornate ceilings and dangling wires and the requisite models who walked to a surreal sound track combining classical music with booming back beats, and an eerie sounding songstress whose voice interrupted the classical flow.

And the clothes in some way mirrored the two worlds. There was at first black, black and more black peppered with patchwork pockets on a jacket in soft orange wool or a Tartan style material used for a flowing pleated skirt worn with a white blouse. And more iterations on the form. Think the soft heathers of Scotland given a romantic twist, like a rich woolen skirt in orange and black dogtooth pattern flowing to the floor.

There was also innovation, like a floor length skirt starched out into a wide hoop around the ankles representing an innovative play on traditional crinoline extended skirt forms.

And there was leather and a touch of S&M in a top that twisted across a models torso revealing white flesh beneath.

It was a beautiful, original collection drawing on romantic womanly styles of old, jazzed up with beautiful rich textiles and relying on a play with form using avant garde and sometimes mannish touches mixed with the romantic and the siren and bright pops of eye-catching colors to bring Branquinho into a design world of her own making.

FrontRow: Olympia Le-Tan Fall/Winter 2015

FrontRow: 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...

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.

Elie Saab Fall/Winter 2015

By Liza Foreman

PARIS

Elie Saab

Fall/Winter 2015

The scene was set for the Elie Saab Fall/Winter 2015 show, with the interiors of the vast tent-like structure transformed into a magical forest with cut-out trees branching artistically over the runway.

The muse of The Way of the Woods collection was, in due course, to venture into a mysterious forest, her clothing to become one with the sublime surroundings.

Shades of pine and moss, it was announced, would flourish upon the garments, from graphic prints in crepe to lace to be transformed into sprigs or a signature bag decorated with a laser cut forestial detail.

Or that at least was the theory spelled out in show notes that then became reality on the runway.

The music was a choral blast of haunting tones, attracting swarms of fashionista scattered like lost deer in the gardens outside the doors. And then rock followed. Sweet Dreams. Some of them want to be abused.

Then inside the intimate space, with the feel of a circus tent, where the family of fashion gathered to watch the show, the cover on the carpet was whipped back like a curtain opening before a production, and the voices of the photographers boomed like a circus master: uncross your legs.

The beating of the drum, and out marched a model in a floor length black dress with military gold buttons decorating the bust. The theme continued with the militaristic knobs decorating a jacket, and gloves or a small bag worn with a black mini dress with long sleeves and boots.

And then more models walked through the forest, in a type of plain green military camouflage used for sexy short dresses and longer gowns, before creations covered in rich blue floral imprints added a rich, historic and artistic touch to some of the full length looks.

Saab's elegant eveningwear bent was never lost, and the military touches or floral prints or a furry jacket that looked like a walking moss creation, all fit into his princess meets girly, sexy and, usually, refined set of look. Some pieces had a slick, night club of old type feel that looked a little retro, like his designs so often feel.

FrontRow: Tsumori Chisato Fall/Winter 2015

FrontRow: Tsumori Chisato Fall/Winter 2015: By Liza Foreman PARIS The old world interiors of the Ecole des Beaux Arts were treated to a touch of the comic book world on Saturday ...

FrontRow: Tsumori Chisato Fall/Winter 2015

FrontRow: Tsumori Chisato Fall/Winter 2015: By Liza Foreman PARIS The old world interiors of the Ecole des Beaux Arts were treated to a touch of the comic book world on Saturday ...

Tsumori Chisato Fall/Winter 2015

By Liza Foreman

PARIS

The old world interiors of the Ecole des Beaux Arts were
treated to a touch of the comic book world on Saturday
morning, with the colorful Japanese designer
Tsumori Chisato's Fall/Winter 2015 catwalk show.

Chisato who has a chi chi store in the Aoyama district of Tokyo, sent
out cute and sometimes couture level designs that both brought to
mind a character that had walked out of a comic book or
a girl that had at least taken a few scraps of comic book pages and put
them onto a dress to embellish the design.

So the Japanese, as we know, like pop culture clothing and
Hello Kitty, and wear other things that might be considered
too silly elsewhere. But in the hands of an extraordinarily
colorful and creative designer, that approach here was elevated into
something that deserves its place on the Paris catwalks and
even shines  there, with creativity of this kind and brands this original being
too few in number.

Mugler Autumn/Winter 2015

By Liza Foreman

Mugler Fall/Winter 2015

For A/W2015, Mugler designer David Koma looked to microchips and circuit boards and thought in terms of sculptural dimensions to turn his digital muses into shapely minidresses and mannish suits for his second outing for the brand.

He dubbed the approach technical craftsmanship but the silhouettes which were also seen in his Spring/Summer 2015 collection were designed in an old-school fashion to accentuate the hips, bust and collarbone, using sheer paneling and eyelets of steel nimrod embroidery, like the metal on a chipboard.

Koma created angular forms that wrapped around the body, by using a mix of warm and also technical materials, from white wool crepe to what he called a 3D sequin shine seen peeping from below tailored cabana and sharp tailored peplums. Eveningwear included silk gowns draped in iridescent sequins which descended towards the ankle in hourglass form.

The results: Litle black dresses and mannish overcoats or mini skirts paired with black sweaters, lined with brightly shining sequins or a dress with see through panels that extended into a collar like round neck design.

What sounded inventive and new on paper translated into little cocktail dresses and Seventies style white coats worn with turtlenecks, or gold patchwork paneling found on a white mini dress or a brown sequined top shining like diamonds from beneath a white suit with cropped trousers.

The look was mostly flirty and cocktail hour with a touch of masculine found in the suits.

The beats playing in the white interiors of the Grand Palais have a futuristic feel but at best the pieces were minimalist and dotted in computer board type Metallica from time to time, but were not that obviously inspired by the infinite possibilities that the designer spoke of in the show notes or those intricate real world connections that result from microchips and circuit boards that were mentioned in the notes as well.