The old dilemma plays out at Paris fashion week: Practical vs. extravagant garments

In Paris: Practical clothes vs. crazy ones

PARIS — Sober workaday chic and theatrical extravagance battled for the hearts and minds of the fashion glitteratti on Sunday, day five of Paris’ marathon fall-winter 2010-11 ready-to-wear displays.

Celine designer Phoebe Philo — a critical darling whose return to fashion after a yearslong hiatus was the event of last season — delivered a collection of sharp, clean-lined work staples for professional women who want to be fashion-forward — without looking like their teenage daughters. Swiss label Akris also served up tasteful grown up clothes for professional women, in sumptuous cashmeres with crystal rhinestone embellishments. Both shows were a welcome respite from the over-the-top looks at other Paris shows.

Though it couldn’t last. (And nor would we want it to.)

In a multibillion dollar industry concerned with the bottom line, the French capital is widely seen as the last bastion of true creativity, where fancy, flight and madness are accepted and even encouraged. John Galliano, the British eccentric who has long born the torch of overwrought creativity, was in excellent form, with a rollicking theatrical spectacle that involved enormous sparklers, exaggerated layered looks and copious amounts of fur.

Givenchy’s maestro of masochism, the super talented Riccardo Tisci, plumbed the depths of the Id, serving up a mouthwatering collection of kinky looks concocted from such apparently innocent ingredients as old school ski sweaters and neoprene, the fabric wetsuits are made of.

Karl Lagerfeld, the ponytailed Kaiser of contemporary fashion, also looked to scubadiving for a latex and vinyl-heavy show of vaguely wetsuit-y looks.

Sonia Rykiel, the queen of knitwear, broke with popular convention requiring models to wear irritated expressions and march angrily down the catwalk. Her models, sporting whimsical trompe l’oeil dresses and cute knit overalls, jaunted happily down the runway, slapping high fives as they passed one another and even — gasp — smiling!

It was a mixed bag at Hussein Chalayan. The Turkish designer drew on a hodgepodge of disparate influences — think Puritan milk maid, Argentine birdwatcher and knitting enthusiast — turning out a collection in which randomness seemed to be the sole real theme.

Paris’ eight-day-long ready-to-wear displays enter day six Monday, with displays by Beatle daughter Stella McCartney, whimsical label Kenzo and flailing French house Emanuel Ungaro.

GIVENCHY

It’s amazing how kinky an old-school ski sweater can be.

In the hands of Givenchy designer Tisci, even the most naive and tenderhearted looks are imbued with a brooding, dangerous sensuality. Case in point, Sunday’s show, which faintly pulsated with latent S&M impulses.

The display, held in a cavernous high school where the body-heat generated by the closely packed audience members was the sole source of warmth, started off tamely. Except for the rhinestone-covered knit gloves and bags, the camel colored jackets and pantsuits that opened the show looked almost utterly unremarkable. But the momentum built quickly.

Tisci, an avid scuba diver, looked to his hobby — and January’s menswear display centered around neoprene — serving up skintight pants, parkas and abbreviated skirts in the wetsuit material. The skirts, which had big plastic zippers up the front, were paired with the ski sweaters, knit with folksy patterns in light green, red and ivory.

“I looked to the mountains on the top of the world and to bottom of the sea, because I like to bring together the two extremes,” Tisci, his cheeks smudged with red glitter from the models’ sparkling ruby kisses, told The Associated Press in a backstage interview. “It’s all about the extremes.”

After the ski-scuba looks, Tisci sent out little apron dresses with black lace paneling that was very kinky French maid and slip dresses with ostrich feather bustiers and diaphanous trains.

The steamy looks raised the temperature in the wintery venue. The frozen-solid audience of fashion insiders thawed out and hooted and screamed and applauded Tisci and his ravishing clothes.

JOHN GALLIANO

Fur sprouted from every seam, wisps of it adorning even the jewelry.

The nomadic-themed collection’s layered looks — which heaped vests in goat hair over oversized sweaters, on top of drop-crotched harem pants — looked ready to take on the icy winds of the Mongolian steppe or the highlands of Tibet.

Each look was so elaborate, with so much going on, that it was impossible to take it all in.

Greatcoats had sculptural skirts that held their bulbous shapes and were embellished with fancy ethnic motif embroidery. The harem pants, in flower prints, were swaddled in scarves and low-slung leather belts. The shoes were trekking boots fitted with an ultra-practical spike heel.

Fur was everywhere, in patchwork paneling on the coats, dangling from the jackets’ sleeves and peeking out of the seams on the evening gowns in Galliano’s hallmark bias cut silk. Even the oversized metal disk earrings, bangles and necklaces sprouted long locks of the stuff.

The models’ hair was a feat of engineering. Lacquered into thick black ribbons, it was worked into sculptural, gravity-defying loops atop the models’ heads. The silver confetti that shot out of little geysers along the catwalk stuck to their ‘dos like snow.

The show ended literally with a bang, as giant sparklers erupted when the ever-theatrical Galliano — decked out in a sort of kimono with a sleeping bag strapped to his back — took to the runway for his trademark puff-chested bow.

CELINE

It was the answer to working women’s prayers.

Philo, whose return to design last year was a major event in the fashion world, pushed her streamlined vision of the working woman’s wardrobe forward, sending out an appealing collection of hooded wool coats and sheath dresses that were fashion-forward without being adolescent.

Tunic shirts were paired with cropped pants with the slightest bit of flare, and skirts, with hemlines that reached below-the-knee, were worn with blouses in creamy silk. In a nod to the label’s strong tradition of leatherwork, leather pockets and finishings accented many of looks.

Though the collection was largely utilitarian, made by a woman for the way working women live now, it was not devoid of fancy. Like modern variations on the tuxedo, little jackets were cropped in the front, curving with a flourish into tails in the back. An extra-long bow on a short-sleeved blouse in ivory silk fluttered behind the models as they walked, like tails on an Indian kite. A coat in black boucle shot with shimmering metallic fibers was pure Mick Jagger.

“I’m not designing for one person,” said Philo, who won a loyal legion of fans during her tenure at Celine’s cross-town rival, Chloe. “That’s what I like about the collection, it’s such a mix of looks, not made for just one person.”

It’s a safe bet that Philo’s fans will like that, too.

AKRIS

Designer Albert Kriemler delivered business looks with just a dash of subversive kinkiness to allow them to move seamlessly into the night, like razor-cut, high-waisted flares and sober sheath dresses with cut crystal accents at the neckline.

The jackets — cropped double-breasted ones in double-faced cashmere — and the cocoon coats breathed effortless chic, without being showy.

The one hiccup in the collection were the outfits in fabric digitally printed with a sepia photo of a mountain that made the pant suits and dresses look like they’d lost an epic battle with a bottle of bleach.

SONIA RYKIEL

Finally, fun on the catwalk!

In an age where frowning models stomping angrily down the catwalk are de rigeur, a display of apparently sincere fun — like the jiving, high-fiving models on the Rykiel catwalk — was a breath of fresh air.

The clothes, a fresh mix of oversized sweaters and trompe l’oeil rompers matched the models’ lighthearted attitude: They were carefree, fun and irreverent.

Outstanding pieces in the strong collection included a bustier dress made from several of the label’s signature striped sweaters tied round the model’s bust and torso and a pair of oatmeal knit overalls-cum-longjohns. Headbands with an oversized yarn pom-pom topped off all the looks.

Nathalie Rykiel, the daughter of the house’s founder, said the collection was conceived “for a woman who’s strong, smart and has a sense of humor.”

“What I mean is basically, is that it’s for a woman with soul,” Nathalie, the label’s president and creative director, told reporters backstage after the show. “That’s what I told the models. Show your soul on the runway.”

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN

The show’s soundtrack — a cacophony of radio broadcasts from around the world — was probably as good a metaphor as any for the collection, where diverse influences competed without any of them ever gaining the upper hand.

There were the Puritan maiden’s starched cotton bonnets, the Argentine ponchos accessorized with binoculars wrapped in matching camel wool covers, the leg warmers that looked like they had been knit by a slightly demented, colorblind grandmother and the shades, with oversized plastic frames spelling out the word “Mirage.” Why? It was anybody’s guess.

A sheath dress was made from a tangle of winding strips, one of which snaked up and enveloped the model’s head. Blinded, she walked tentatively, feeling her way down the catwalk.

If the Turkish designer had a message with this hodgepodge of a collection, it was as indecipherable as the ever-shifting radio soundtrack.

The strongest part of the show was the eveningwear, column dresses that scintillated with black, purple and cherry-hued Swarovski crystals and that had dangerously high slits up the side. And because a dose of bizarreness was obligatory, the gowns were worn with hybrid hat-scarves made from layers of black and pink silk, like a stack of oversized flapjacks.

KARL LAGERGELD

For his signature label, Chanel and Fendi designer Karl Lagerfeld went deep sea diving, layering high-necked coats in dense wools that resembled neoprene over latex leggings.

The tops were cut close to the body like scuba suits and had inserts of shiny vinyl panels. The models also wore wide vinyl headbands in their windswept bouffants. Even the evening looks, beaded dresses fitted with bodice belts, were worn with the vinyl leggings — which fitted over glossy stiletto heels.

As per usual at Lagerfeld, the collection was mostly black on black, with a handful of looks in rich chocolate tones.

Highlights of the collection included a high-necked, cap-sleeved shirt worn with a black vinyl pencil skirt and leggings and a tunic in shimmery material with fancy origami folds at the neckline and a nipped waist.

Beth Ditto, singer of the U.S. band Gossip and a usual suspect at Lagerfeld’s shows, called the collection “amazing,” though she quickly added, “but I don’t want to talk like someone who knows something about fashion because I really have no idea.”