Review: At Paris Fashion Week, Balmain has spikes and ruffles for the rabble-rouser
Reporting from Paris — Olivier Rousteing has often riffed on the notion of clothing as armor in his Balmain collections, sometimes enthusiastically embracing it, and other times explicitly rejecting it. His fall and winter 2019 collection for the house was definitely in the former category thanks to a sea of silver spikes that covered every square inch of dresses, skirts, jackets, transparent PVC trousers and raincoats, denim, shoes and deadly looking handbags.
“We don’t praise female troublemakers nearly enough,” Rousteing wrote in the show notes, going on to explain that he and his creative team took inspiration from “the self-assured women of [his] generation, who demand control and are not content to simply push back — instead, they revel in pushing forward, (while pushing every single button along the way).”
A lot of the wardrobe for rebelles and rabble-rousers keyed into the traditional signifiers of youthful rebellion, mostly pointedly the motorcycle jacket silhouette which was served up here in a range of fabrications including leather, denim and PVC, most of them heavily spiked. The notion of strength was telegraphed by super-strong shoulders (emerging as a super-strong seasonal trend thanks to high-profile appearances on the runways at Rick Owens and Saint Laurent), either by way of boxy-silhouette capes and coats or by a garden of floral embellishments stretching from shoulder-to-shoulder.
An exploded hound’s-tooth check pattern was also sprinkled liberally throughout the collection, which helped underscore the idea of toughness (it involves both hounds and teeth; how much tougher can you get?); it appeared on pleated ponchos, severe-shouldered looks, belted overcoats and biker vests.
While the togs-for-tough-girls trappings were the clear fashion-show focus-puller (the angular, spike-studded quilted leather skirts and prickly motorcycle jackets in particular), the most beautiful — and probably wearable (sitting down in a spike-festooned pair of pants probably requires some serious forethought) — looks had nary a piece of hardware or sharp angle to be seen. One was a pastel purple bubble dress, the other two sported large, fan-like ruffles anchored at the waist.
Sometimes, the most rebellious act of all is not feeling compelled to telegraph just how tough you are.
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