Paris Day Three: Poise and Manners

PARIS — The relationship between gestures and clothes has been a key preoccupation for designers this season, and the third day of shows in Paris was mostly about poise and manners.

The otherworldly beauties imagined by Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford were a vision of self-possession bursting with the powerful eroticism that comes from apparent chill. Perched on the slenderest high heels or pointy boots, hair backcombed into aerodynamic perfection, his models stalked the catwalk slowly but steadily, arms at their the sides, or crossed on their chests, as solemn as sorceresses and as dangerous as leather queens. The look was potent, spilling into the menswear, where it came with a tingle of American Psycho.

Despite being so polished, studious and sharp, the unveiling of the brand’s next chapter came with real emotion, which is what fashion desperately needs at the moment. Haider Ackermann is the right man in the right place, and Mr Ford, who was in the audience and hugged the new creative director at the end of the show, seemed to agree. “I hope I seduced you,” said a radiant Ackermann, whose final bow was welcomed with a standing ovation. He did indeed.

Under Ackermann, Ford’s overt sexuality became a sensuality that was equally powerful. “Tom was nightlife, I am the morning after,” said Ackermann. The creatures he envisioned inside a grey room with steamed mirrors, however, were not on their morning walk of shame. Rather, they seemed ready for the night but already touched by the morning after. The outing’s poetry was in this misalignment: a melancholia which broke the icy perfection.

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An orchestra rehearsing on the soundtrack and a dimly lit lateral hall at the Opera Garnier, whose facade was under construction: for his debut as creative director of Dries Van Noten, Julian Klausner embraced the notion of a work-in-progress. “I knew I was going to show here from the very beginning, so I built the collection around the space and the atmosphere it conveys,” he said.

Stepping into the shoes of Van Noten, who retired last year, is no easy task, and Klausner handled the affair in a sensitive way that was both respectful and personal, mixing the flou, prints and sense of meandering multiculturalism Van Noten stood for with some strong tailoring touched by shoelace detailing. Also familiar was the solemn yet poetic drama of the show.

The result felt consistent with the history of the house. But one could also see a point of view at work. This was a Dries Van Noten executed with a heavier hand than the past, served with a graphic punch. It was a good start; from now on comparisons are pointless.

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At Courrèges, Nicolas Di Felice stripped things down, as if bringing the “dress” back to its initial state as a piece of cloth wrapped around the body. Given Di Felice’s happy interest in sexuality, and how it relates to the act of dressing — imagining items so easy to put on, they can immediately come off when needed — the piece of fabric, in his case, was actually as narrow as a scarf. Most of the collection featured slinky, short minidresses made of sashes twisted and turned around the body, and then left dangling as a kind of train. Then, there was the roomy, protective outerwear that went on top of such concoctions. It all looked like a formula, in the happiest of ways, with Di Felice’s trademark angular, even harsh touch. Sure, there was something rigid to the proceedings, but Di Felice has long managed to bring desirability to the Courrèges label, turning its futuristic spirit into an idea of speed that is alluring. The poise his collection suggested was halfway between dressing and undressing, and it felt on point.

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The Row was undressed, too, by way of the impossibly tempting so-rich-I-can-do-away-with-everything fantasy the Olsen twins have mastered so well. Models walked barefoot in dense tights over the carpeted floor of the grand hôtel particulier that houses the label’s headquarters, rushing out in a state of partial dress, hair brushed forward to cover their eyes, an additional pair of tights serving as an impromptu scarf. After seasons of Yohji-esque volumes and intense layering, this was a particularly reductionist outing from The Row: as beautiful as a scrubbed face glowing in unmade-up glory, in a 1990s Calvin Klein way.

Working under the slogan “from laptop to lap dance” and relying on a healthy dose of humor, Stella McCartney played with the notion of the working woman, juxtaposing strong-shouldered tailoring with draped dresses; corporate aggression with brazen seduction. There was nothing that moved the conversation forward, but it was relatable in a way that only happens when a woman designs for women.

Balmain creative director Olivier Rousteing, now in his fourteenth year at the house, has cleaned up his act, and all the better for it. His latest collection was still as proudly tacky as ever, but it came with a new polish that had potential.