Alex Kiselev and Maia Tarkhan-Mouravi, the London-based, Russian-Georgian team behind the Kisa label, are pretty excited that their wares are now being stocked in Moscow as well as across Europe and the United States, and on Sunday night in Paris they celebrated their Russian expansion in appropriate fashion: i.e., with cocktails and caviar at perennial hot spot Caviar Kaspia. "I'm not at all hungry," said model Lily Donaldson as she scooped up an oligarch's ransom in beluga. "But who says no to caviar?" Given the occasion and the venue, talk inevitably turned to Mother Russia. "I like the efficiency of their drinking," said stylist Charlotte Stockdale. "Just a bottle of vodka on the table, no mixers, no carbs, no sugar. Just the good stuff." At the end of the night, eco-minded Kiselev dispersed tiny USB hubs containing this season's lookbook to guests like Barbara Bush, Olympia Scarry, and Eugenie Niarchos. Doubtful anyone was rushing home to log on to their laptops, however. It's Paris fashion week, after all.

 

At Balmain

September 28, 2008

On the Street… Rue Rivoli, Paris

September 28, 2008

At Rick Owens

September 28, 2008

At Kris Van Assche

September 27, 2008

At Gareth Pugh

September 27, 2008

PARIS, September 27, 2008

By Tim Blanks

No one could ever deny that Kris Van Assche sticks to his guns with his love of all things Latin American, but his fascination tends to be more intriguing than the fashion that results from it. This season, for instance, he was drawn to the chola, the Mexican gangbanger's moll. At least that was one interpretation of the black and midnight blue palette, the tank tops and baggy shorts (more boxer's shorts than boxer shorts), and the hard-edged styling touches like dark makeup and teardrop tattoos. But that toughness just came across as flat-out odd. Elsewhere, Van Assche honed his signatures: the floor-sweeping lengths, here in wrapped skirts, and the interplay of masculine and feminine elements, like a pinstriped jacket matched to a tiny skirt. A plain black pantsuit turned to reveal a waistcoat back to the jacket. Van Assche called his collection "Sang Bleu," presumably a reference to the blue blood of aristocracy, but "blue blood" also connotes anemia, and, indeed, there was something anemic about an entirely sheer slubbed-gauze gown. Ship it with a slip? Not likely.

PARIS, September 28, 2008

By Sarah Mower

Olivier Theyskens' collection for Nina Ricci was like watching the performance of a long piece of self-referential romantic poetry. It's a world of his own, and to fully appreciate it, you need to know what's gone before in his work: his love of Edwardiana and tailcoats; the fluttery, flyaway cutting; the delicate prints and the dusty, organic woodland-floor palettes he likes.

This season, he said he was "inspired by dance and dresses that each evolved their own shape, short in the front and long in the back." Though there were some of the flange-sided, jodhpurlike pants Theyskens has been developing for the past few seasons and a sighting or two of his signature jackets (like an off-white crackle leather with Victoriana sleeves, or one that was made from blue-gray chiffon), most of the show was devoted to a long sequence of trail-y dresses. Essentially, it was a single silhouette, with a high collar, leg-of-mutton sleeves, and skirts cut away to show long lengths of leg, clad in sheer black tights, walking on high-heeled pumps.

As the dresses came and went on a long runway, the vista of floating trains and looped-up demi bustles had a certain cinematic beauty and technical ingenuity—georgette panels became fused with hosiery to flow from the leg in movement. In all? Exquisite and ethereal though it was, the vision seemed too limited to take Theyskens' talent anywhere new.

September 25, 2008