Gimmicks and boldness from top designers

Press, 22 October 1986, Page 11

Gimmicks and boldness from top designers

By

BARBARA BRIGHT

of Reuters (through NZPA) Paris Chanel has turned advertising gimmickry into high fashion and Christian Dior has gone African with panther prints, raffia trim, and beading in ready-to-wear clothes for spring and summer. The Chanel collection, a high point of yesterday’s fashion previews for buyers and fashion journalists, showed the Chanel classic braided suit and gold-buttoned dresses, all decorated with belts, earrings, and blouses advertising Chanel No. 5 perfume. Models wearing Chanel T-shirts distributed copies of a Chanel advertising edition of the “International Herald Tribune,” with a dummy front page showing a picture of a French actress, Carole Bouquet, whose face will be used to advertise the perfume. One evening dress had a bodice that looked like a Chanel shoulder bag with gold chains as straps. Fabrics were printed with gardenias, another Chanel motif. With less taste and talent, it could have been crass commercialism. The advertising sales director of the “International Herald Tribune,” Rolf Kranepuhl, said the special front page and advertising section had cost Chanel SUSIO7,OOO dollars ($215,000).

For Chanel’s designer, Karl Lagerfeld, it was another demonstration of prolific genius. The new design elements included gold button closings that were slightly slanted on some suits and asymmetrical jacket hems with one side pointed, the other rounded.

Chanel showed miniskirted black leather sheath dresses trimmed with black lace ruffles at the hip or with one shoulder sporting a black net ruffled sleeve in flamenco style and the opposite hip trimmed with a bow and long ruffled train.

The season’s obligatory black and white stripes in body-hugging cotton jersey were shown with a colourful print bomber jacket with ribbed waist and collar, and underneath a shirt advertising Chanel perfume. Dior had appliqued panthers crawling over the shoulder of a linen dress and crouching at the back of a cotton gaberdine chemise. Marc Bohan, Dior’s designer, used a panther print and black striped organza for the collection’s most dramatic evening wear. Bodices were heavily beaded in bold African designs and some dresses and skirts had raffia trim in place of ruffles.

Dior’s tarty sheaths in chartreuse, hot pink, and other fluorescent-col-oured lurex may sell well to the disco set but

looked out of place among better-behaved fashions. Hip-wrapped taffetas with knife-pleated off-the-shoulder ruffles and pleated skirts were more successful and a casual knit series in pistachio and cream-coloured stripes' with long full coats, slim jackets and long swingy skirts was particularly pretty. A Japanese designer, Hiroko Koshino, has a skilful way with knits and designs guaranteed to produce a dramatic effect. She showed thinstriped knits with desert sunset colours, and big heavy-knit sweaters over geometricprinted jerseys in black and white. Her zoot-suit length jackets over trousers narrowing to the calf and tab-buttoned anklelength skirts looked heavy but handsome for city wear. For women who want to look as if they spend their days at restaurants and out shopping, Hubert de Givenchy showed a classic range of tailored suits and silk day dresses, most with kneelength skirts. He favours a single gold button at the waist for suits, often with wide white collars and cuffs. Dresses have puffed sleeves cuffed above the elbow. One evening gown in black and white organza had wide pinafore ruffles at the shoulders.