‘They get rowdier every year’, a translucent blonde from an Austrian title muttered at the Guy Laroche show. This happened as the overheated room filled with the smell of melting hairspray as everyone fanned themselves and muttered impatiently until the photographers in their pyramid began to hoot and whistle at the show’s late start. The show was running late, true. But people were getting impatient because Giambattista Valli’s show, on the other side of the Tuileries, was up next. Valli is a tough act to lead into but must be even tougher to follow, especially for trade photographers who have to watch from behind idle cameras as celebrity stalkers work the room. Red carpet walkers are rare in Paris. When Mary Kate (or the other one) Olsen appeared from out of nowhere, like a terrified white bunny under the barrage of flash bulbs, a murmur of ‘Mais c’est qui? C’est qui?’ moved through the crowd. At last season’s show I overheard Rachel Zoe nasally declare, ‘And I was just thinking I want that one and that one and that one…’ Mr. Valli has struck a nerve among self-styled American fashion mavens, who fly in exclusively for his show. Like Leigh Lezark, who arrived in an impossibly opulent cloud of quivering peacock feathers from the winter collection. It’s not so surprising if you think about it. After all, Paris has been on a very dark trip lately, while Hollywood always wants the world to feel like a party at which the confetti never stops falling and the champagne corks get stuck in the chandeliers. Which is just the kind of occasion Mr. Valli’s designs exist for. In what was essentially a collection of mini-dresses composed of layered featherwork, silk transparency, and voluminous, and literally light-as-a-feather, skirts, Valli seems to have confirmed his status as the party season’s favourite designer.
http://www.giambattistavalli.com/
