ARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2015 NEWS/FEATURES 29 Giorgi o Arm ani PARIS: “Twilight” star Kristen Stewart stunned crowds at Chanel’s Paris couture show Tuesday, revealing an edgy bob in a white Chanel sleeveless minidress that showed the 24-year-old is fashion savvy beyond her age. But the second day of spring-summer collections primarily belonged to couturier-cum-social psychologist Karl Lagerfeld. Chanel’s designer apparently happened upon a political solution and the perfect antidote to the Paris terror attacks: Flowers. Golden Globe-winner Robin Wright, meanwhile, rocked Giorgio Armani’s show in a demure black and gray menswear look - with a perfect menswear accessory, boyfriend actor Ben Foster - 15 years her junior. Here are the tidbits and highlights from the 2015 haute couture collections, including show reports for Stephane Rolland, Armani Prive, and Chanel. Lagerfeld Chanel’s shows are always the hottest ticket in town - a moment where ambitious Lagerfeld asks the earth in set design, and always gets his way. Recent shows have included an imported forest, a spaceship, huge wind turbines, a supermarket, and even an entire boulevard. So the initial feeling was one of disappointment when faced with Tuesday’s rather bland couture set of a forest made of white paper. But it was, of course, a trick. As soon as the show began, dashing male models entered the catwalk area armed with watering cans. Lo and behold, the white paper flowers unfurled magically to spawn huge tropical colored blossoms, and vivid 3-D Venus flytraps opened. Guests had been transported into a flower pop-up book, which had taken six months to build. “For people who don’t like to read, pop up books are the best,” quipped the evercutting couturier. Fashio n Alexa ndre V authie r Giorgi o Arm ani Alexa ndre V authie r Above and below: Models present creations by Giorgio Armani; Alexandre Vauthier; Atelier Gustavolins; Elie Saab and Frank Sorbier during the 2015 Haute Couture SpringSummer collection fashion show on Jan 27 in Paris. (AFP) PARIS Giorgi o Arm ani Chanel There was a joyous feeling in the air at Chanel. Perhaps it was to do with the fun surrealism of the sculpted papers flowers, or maybe it came from the clothes themselves: youthful, colorful, fresh and served with a twist of the freedom of the 1960s Sexual Revolution. Circular stand up collars, A-line minis, bolero jackets and daringly low exposed midriffs defined ier many of the silhouettes - the re Vauth Alexand latter first popularized in the West during the time of blond bombshell Brigitte Bardot. Elsewhere there were flashes of other ns ustavoli eras, reimagined. Hemlines often went Atelier G south to the prudish pre-Sixties midcalf. It’s been a bleak time this January “Especially after this dark, awful following Paris’ worst terror attacks in beginning to the year there was somedecades. thing like this needed.. There’s someEccentric Kaiser Karl says that the thing about flowers,” he said by the Chanel show was just the antidote. giant paper pop-up garden. Armani Giorgio Stephane Rolland Kate Hudson flashed at Versace, Rick Owens showed male models, and now couturier Stephane Rolland is at it, at his otherwise demure and fairy-like couture show. The French designer’s spring-sum- “X-men: The Last Stand” actor partner, Foster, a relative newcomer on the red carpet circuit. They shared the Armani front row with actresses Paz Vega, Juliette Binoche and Kristin Scott Thomas, who has recently said she’s quitting cinema. In the gentle, 68-piece collection, it was all about Oriental musing for the octogenarian Italian couturier. A set of haphazardly placed bamboo columns acted as catwalk obstacles for the models who filed by devastatingly stylishly (and slowly) in silk looks that featured bamboo prints and large statement ier Chinese rb o S k n Fra sashes. Karl Lagerfeld’s show for Chanel under the soaring glass canopy of the unheated Grand Palais rbier on a chilly Tuesday in Frank So Paris majored on bare midriffs, a floral dreamscape and eyepopping shades of electric blue, tangerine and canary yellow. Life-sized grey paper buds opened to reveal exotic multi-coloured blooms, and clusters of oversized hand-stitched flowers hanging heavily from hems of coats, exploding from shoulders or swinging from full skirts cut below the b knee. Elie Saa Thousands of pale pink sequins adorned a slinky skirt and matching mer display explored his signature bolero length short-sleeved jacket, their themes in a slightly more diaphanous weight slowing the gait of the model. direction than usual: Full skirts in gazar, Oversized bouquets of flowers — oversized organic embroideries, and whether in eclectic combinations of stylish column silhouettes that showed blue, crimson and pink, or tangerine off the natural beauty of the silk fibers. and red — sprung from the shoulders of This season he forwent his go-to dresses in periwinkle silk, or red and color, red, for a subtler palette with orange. (Agencies) lashings of white. Armani Wright chatted and laughed with her