Paris Fall / Winter 2006 Wrapup II

Wow. The Paris shows seem to get better and better. The designers are really getting a firm grip of their brands.

Rochas
When you see the first few photos of this Rochas collection, it should instantly hit you that Olivier Theysken really managed to turn his inspiration into real fashion. His inspiration oddly enough is "chimney sweeps. But more relaxed and very refined. A lot of black and gray -and the idea of climbing up to see the clouds above the city." This pretty much sums up the collection. Even the headbands are like ladders and the eye makeup is very... charcoal-like. The color palette is not suprisingly black, grey and white. One thing I liked about this show is that it is not particularly inspired by any of the decades. Finally, this is a show I don't have to say, the dresses were inspired by the x0's, because it belongs to its own time. The dresses were absolutely GORGEOUS. Left: The white dress seems so etheral. Right: The black chiffon at the bottom seems to be literally swirling around Lisa Cant. This has got to be one of my favourite dresses out of all the FW06 dresses.

YSL Rive Gauche
Another beautiful, chic collection. I don't know what to say about it except that it was very YSL: There were the very YSL-chiffon ruffles around the necklines; There were the girly, chic big bows around the necks and wasits; And yes, there were the famous tulip skirts again, except this time they were shorter, above the knees tulips. And as seen in many shows so far, belts were featured prominantly around short dresses and coats. The whole show was black, black and black, with the occasional complimentary white, pink and purple.

Stella McCartney
McCartney's collection is changing: there was less of the normal rock-chick feel, and now more of the English-effortlessly cool feel. This meant less of those McCartney skinny pants and blazers, but a wider variety of clothes and the continue evolution of her signature garments, (such as the oversized sweaters and shift dresses.) Also new are the denim, mainly jeans. To be honest, I didn't really like the blue jeans. I always felt McCartney was great at the whole black skinny jeans/ pants look. All in all, nothing particularly stunning about this collection, but the photos above are some fantastic individual pieces.

Cacharel
I lost interest of Cacharel for awhile, but am liking it again. Cacharel to me was always quite a crafty, youthful brand. And it seems like for FW06, it has grown up a bit -now being a more sophisticated, youthful brand. As the British Vogue catwalk review says, the Cacharel girl will be the most stylish and most popular girl in your yearbook. And this description is so true: The collection was relatively colorful and had a LOT of realistically wearable pieces.
The dresses in paritcular were not overly formal yet sill very chic -perfect for us normal people where a 'formal event' does not mean a 'red carpet event'. If you're actually thinking of buying clothes off a catwalk, then Cacharel is a must-consider brand.