Paris Fashion Week

Paris fashion week! People say Paris Fashion Week changes you and makes you understand what a serious business fashion is. Well they definitely spend more money on the set and stages in the beautiful setting of the Louvre- I mean this fashion council aint playin!

I knew it would be a good week when I received six invites for shows on a day I wasn’t even in the country. But I was especially disappointed to miss the Gareth Pugh collection. He’s the Brit of the moment in Paris and flying that flag like a gooden!
This season Gareth decided to collaborate with young cinematographer, Ruth Hogben to make a film of his collection rather than a live show. Excited texts from friends at the screening boasting of the ‘spooky, electric atmosphere ‘ and what an ‘amazing’ setting it was in a warehouse in the 10th Arrondissement of Paris, sent me into a ridiculous fit of jealousy which resulted in me turning my Blackberry off and sulking.

My tantrum didn’t last for long however as 24 hours later I arrived at 10pm to my friend’s apartment in Central Paris, and after feeling a little groggy I got all too willingly dragged out to La Pearl bar and didn’t return until 4 am. Three hours later my darling friend Sarah- Jane Crawford (E4- Radio 1xtra) arrived at 7 am. Unfortunately for me I had to be up an hour later to film the Lie Sang Bong show for SSTV, set in the very beautiful Le Grand Hotel.
The show was gorgeous. Not particularly feminine but rather beautifully engineered. I loved the strong shoulder pads and black power jackets (something of which my chum Hilary Alexander was sporting). Two looks that stood out for me were a black jacket with what appeared to be a Frankenstein style bolt through the shoulder pads and dramatic red tasseled dress.
This collection was part inspired by hard 80’s power dressing, part by granny’s 50 year old lampshade: an odd but truly stunning combination. 

Next onto the ‘robot girl’ inspired Nina Ricci show whose collection was filled with sequins, body con jumpsuits, ridiculously high space age style cut out shoes and even more ridiculously skinny models.
The three hours sleep caught up with me and so in true rock n’ roll style I went to bed for the rest of the afternoon/evening.
However I must have been dreaming if I thought I would get a sleep in, as at 7 am (what is it with antisocial hours of arriving?) my two other friends Irene Asos.com and Music video / street wear stylist and fashion girl about town Poppy Lafond arrived fresh from the Eurostar to our apartment (yes that would be five girls in one apartment-keep track!)

After a few hours of catching up on the London gossip (well I had been gone a whole two days) we all bundled into a cab en route to the Issy Miyake show, where after much protestation to our driver in jumbled French that we were not a girl band, he insisted on shouting at the top of his voice (with the car window down) that we were  ‘ “zee pussycat dolls, zee pussy girls, zee famous onez.”
After this identity confusion I had a minute to prepare myself for the first show of the day. I was particularly excited, as I have had a fascination with the Issy Miyake brand for years. Miyake isn’t just another fashion designer but more of a fashion scientist.
Miyake started creating new techniques with pleating back in the 80’s, which gave this fabric ‘memory’ as well as movement, allowing the wearer to remodify the way in which each garment was worn and turn it into an original piece.
 In comparison to the Lie Sang Bong show, Miyake included dark reds mixed with blacks and irridescent greys. After the Miyake show there was a quick lunch in my favorite Parisian spot Angelina’s Café on the Rue de Rivoli.
Our driver dropped us outside the Vivienne Westwood show at the beautiful Place Vendome. Greeting us were about a trillion paparazzi, cameras, fur protestors and Viv fans  and being held up for a good five minutes by photographers insisting on getting just about every shot from every possible angle we were kindly ushered past the mile long queue to our places.


Sometimes at high profile fashion shows the ‘pre show’ is just as the good as the official show. By the pre show I mean celebrity sittings and gossip- of which there was an abundance.
To the left of me there was the gorgeous and equally outrageous - for outrageous sake- Beth Ditto, as well as my chum and Vivienne Westwood model Suki Alice with Georgia Jagger.
We also bumped into ‘stylist to the stars’ Karen Binns whose phrase ‘its MAJOR’ Sarah-Jane and I decided to adopt as a reaction and answer to just about everything.

It was indeed the show to be at. Vivienne Westwood is none other than an icon and my personal idol, and as this was my first VW show apart from the initial delight of just being there, the actual collection was strong and steeped in ecological and sociopolitical references. With models wearing t-shirts that had the ‘5 deg ‘ logo, which according to Viv herself represented the temperature that the earth could reach in the future, brought the good old fashioned English loud mouth way of communication back to Paris Fashion Week.

A surprise celebrity model took the form of Pamela Anderson, who strutted out in a white tutu, tight pink dress with her hands tied behind her back with brown leather straps (representing our inability to be active in stopping the global warming process) The collection was eclectic and fun and although I heard some bitching along the front row about the collection being’ mismatched’ and Pam’s nipple popping out (it had to happen at some point) in my eyes ‘the Westwood’ can do no wrong.

After the show and again being held up by rather aggressive photographers we were hardly safe. The pesky snappers following us bumped right into Peaches Geldof’s set of paps following her, and to the delight of the adrenaline filled photographers there was nothing to do but burst out into laughter. Amongst the chaos   we tried  desperately tyo get our drivers’ attention, who at this point was truly convinced we were indeed the Pussycat Dolls.

After a quick few cocktails in Hotel Costes we were onto the Vivienne Westwood after- party. Unimpressed with the lack of free bar, but loving the small jazz club feel to the place and the punk rock music. We could have been back in London as the place was filled with English stylists including Sophia Hesketh, English model Lily Donaldson and English presenters including George Lamb. In fact I think the only individual that wasn’t English in that room was Pamela Anderson, who seemed to be in deep conversation all night with a dark haired gentleman.
At 3am and after much catching up with London friends and jumping around the room to The Clash  in true fashion style we all got hungry and went to McDonalds, well, ‘ when in Paris’ right ?!
 
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