Nicolas Ghesquière may have pushed the boundaries with his extraordinary collection that spun fabrics and silhouettes into a new orbit in the fashion firmament, but the highly-wearable “futuristic couture” of his design (think short, square and boxy) will keep his fiercely loyal clientele happy straight into 2011. This was a collection all about texture, worked into the simplest and, according to Ghesquière, “domestic” shapes–hip-length round-shouldered jackets, short angled wrap skirts, cropped hint-of-a-flare trousers and knitted leggings, boxy shifts and pinafores, padded tops and sculpted knits.
The season’s core color palette consisted of camel, grey, black and winter white–offset with a quirky mix of 50s-style pastels, hyacinth blue, peppermint green, apricot, peach and a dash of cobalt blue. What’s more, however, was that Ghesquière so masterfully tackles fabrics. For fall, quite honestly, they defied description with their play on matte versus shine, plush against plastic, airy perforations against faux lace, bonded knits against metallic leather–all sculpted into flat angles and planes like futuristic armor. As it turns out, Ghesquière coupled paper, cardboard and aluminum paper with silk and cashmere to create his thick, squishy layers that were sculpted into simple silhouettes.
A jagged leaf-like motif and a vividly colored newspaper print–laminated and perforated and printed with words and slogans in French and English–were the two prints in the collection, while geometric angles, flat planes and mismatched fabrics and bound edges abound. Lest we digress, the shoes were c’est magnifique! Ghesquière has breathed new life into the nerdy-chic loafer, delivering a stellar–and already highly coveted–stacked-heel croc version constructed of layered cubes, angular Formica and resin heels which were stunningly backlit thanks to a specially installed runway inspired by the set of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
