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PARIS, France — To paraphrase Sonia Rykiel herself, freedom isn't given, it's yours to take. And she took all sorts of liberties as the queen of the Saint Germain scene.
It's a philosophy — and a life — that rings bells with Julie de Libran. "There's so much glamour to the heritage," she said after her show. "And glamour's my thing," her silver jeans emphasising her point as she rhymed off the other inspirations for her new collection: "A bit of sparkle, dancing, but not only clubbers, also people who are more creative after dark. "Les oiseaux de nuit", night birds, rendered here as darting swallows making a vibrant camo pattern.
De Libran counts herself an after-darker. "I design at night," she claimed. So a short sequinned party frock over a long knit skirt brought De Libran's Rykiel together with Sonia's. A long knit t-shirt over elongated plissé also combined the casual of now with the languor of then. De Libran skewed young in her interpretation of Rykiel with frayed denims, crocheted tank dresses, one-shouldered silk minis and handfuls of black leather fringe. But she also mercifully reflected the more grown-up, seductive slink of the Rykiel ethos with black silk pyjamas draped in a yellow marabou boa and long sequinned tanks and a bib-fronted evening dress in navy silk. Those electric boas so effortlessly evoked wild Jerry-Hall-and-Grace-Jones nights at Castel's in the roaring Seventies that they did a lot of De Libran's work for her. But she's going to need to take Rykiel somewhere else on her next outing. There are, after all, another twelve hours in the day.
