Photo-Illustration: Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Courtesy of Chloé, Schiaparelli, Owenscorp
You would never think to place Daniel Roseberry and Rick Owens on the same satin divan. The creatures who stir in their imaginations are utterly different. Owens’s clothes, along with his models, often look like they populate a horror movie; the mind strains to find the best nightmare to describe them. Roseberry is a couturier, lodged at Schiaparelli since 2019. Drawing on the wit and culture of Elsa Schiaparelli, he has made Surrealist jokes of ears and noses, a fetish of the molded female body.
Both designers have legions of followers. During Paris Fashion Week, you can spot them from a block away: Rick’s in their dark drapery and Brutalist platform boots; Daniel’s in their fitted suits and gold baubles.
On Thursday, however, they were remarkably aligned, or maybe it just became clear how similar their notions of glamour actually are. Their collections were exceptional, among the most cunning and new of the fall ready-to-wear season.
Owens followed Roseberry in the day, so let’s begin with Schiaparelli. The show was staged on a raised glossy black runway with floodlights placed along the rims and the audience seated close, forced to look up at the models, a perspective that hasn’t been used in a long while. The playlist also helped establish the heightened glamour, the sexual pulse. It included “If” and “Escapade” by Janet Jackson, “Praying” by Kesha, and Tate McRae’s “Dear God.”
The real mastery was in the designs. Roseberry has said he wants to bring Schiaparelli ready-to-wear closer to the style and spirit of its haute couture. As he put it, “It’s got to have that Schiap twist or it doesn’t feel like the antithesis to the masses.” In short, creativity can’t be diluted. I think he has achieved that aim over the past two or three collections, but in many ways I like this new expression more than his January couture show. Almost every look was light in construction, ingeniously so, and in a season of hot, tasty glamour — Tom Ford, Gucci — Schiaparelli’s was the most enigmatic.
With a great sense of control, and no small amount of fun, Roseberry never let up on his driving idea, which was a sense of mystery expressed in the materials and details. A molded dinner suit appeared to be made in topstitched black leather; it was in fact satin with a black velvet skirt. Formfitting dresses in a ribbed fabric, with a spiraling cut, looked almost armorial. It was superlight pleated satin in a golden beige hue that was lightly laminated.
From left: Photo: Photo Courtesy of SchiaparelliPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Schiaparelli
From top: Photo: Photo Courtesy of SchiaparelliPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Schiaparelli
The deceptions included illusions of nudity, like a flesh-tone knit dress with licks of material down the front shown with a tiny fur bag, and a cable-knit sweater in wool spliced into strips on a tulle base.
Photo: Photo Courtesy of Schiaparelli
Pantsuits in wool or satin, with waistcoats and half-moon-cut trousers — giving them a ripple — jibed with the confident allure of the rest of the collection. Among the most sensational pieces was a long sleeveless dress in ecru knit with a grainy black trompe l’oeil body print. It evoked the Rayographs of the photographer Man Ray. Another slim dress, in black tulle embroidered with iridescent beads and thorny black sequins, seemed to coat the model’s body in light and shadow, a haze of hot red at her neckline.
From left: Photo: Photo Courtesy of SchiaparelliPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Schiaparelli
From top: Photo: Photo Courtesy of SchiaparelliPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Schiaparelli
Roseberry called the collection “The Sphynx.” In Greek mythology, it’s a woman’s head on the body of a lion. Applying everything he’s learned in Paris, while letting go of some of his elaborate effects from couture, he made her seem alive.
Owens opened his show with severe black columns, and I saw a parallel in glamour to Schiaparelli. Later, he sent out enormous coats and jackets in shaggy goat hair colored in natural browns, muted shades of pink, and sick yellow. Like the Hollywood goddesses who no doubt inspired them, the coats supremely took up space.
From left: Photo: Photo Courtesy of OwenscorpPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Owenscorp
From left: Photo: Photo Courtesy of OwenscorpPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Owenscorp
But just as strong were many of Owens’s other shapes and textures, notably a black sweater in an open-diamond pattern worn with a black leather shrug, full shorts, and his platform boots, which appeared to be encased or bagged in fabric, and versions of shorts in frayed denim or leather. Even a twisted gray velvet (or velour) top seemed a glamorous take on a sweatshirt, Owens style.
From left: Photo: Photo Courtesy of OwenscorpPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Owenscorp
From top: Photo: Photo Courtesy of OwenscorpPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Owenscorp
On the mood board in the Chloé studio, Chemena Kamali had images of a young Brooke Shields in naïve checked shirts, along with those of American college kids during the Free Speech Movement in the ’60s and Dutch women in traditional handmade costumes. What did that collective feeling add up to? “I don’t want to say hippies,” Kamali said.
Her show hardly left that impression. She dug in deep to Chloé’s rich, romantic 1970s, with lovely prairie dresses and skirts in mousseline that were shown over tights and with wool jackets that had a detachable yoke, a feature that lent a graphic sharpness to the look. The skirts are made with a gathering technique that allows them to hold their springy form.
From left: Photo: Photo Courtesy of ChloéPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Chloé
From top: Photo: Photo Courtesy of ChloéPhoto: Photo Courtesy of Chloé
In lots of ways, the best elements in this solid collection were hidden: shirts with delicate floral embroidery and versions in a silk jacquard stripe produced by a century-old mill; hand-knit sweaters; and a pair of full-cut trousers in a heavy black crêpe that were finished at the bottom with suede patches. Chemena’s capes were essentially vests with an overlay, to keep them light. To one muted plaid cape she pinned a brooch with a long cornflower-blue silk streamer. A nice touch.
Photo: Photo Courtesy of Chloé