FRANCE: French designer Christian Lacroix unveiled a Spring and Summer Ready-to-Wear collection while Yves Saint Laurent shows his latest collection at Paris fashion week

Designer Christian Lacroix showed short skirts and skimpy swimsuits in his spring/summer 2007 ready-to-wear collection on Friday (October 6) at the National Art School as he tries to win over younger clients to help revive the label's fortunes. He has also ditched his jeans and cheaper "Bazar" line of clothing for the first time in 10 years to focus on his ready-to-wear and haute couture collections with the aim of taking the brand upmarket. Last year, the loss-making label was sold by luxury goods giant LVMH to the Falic Group, a privately held U.S. investment company. Lacroix will celebrate its 20-year anniversary next year and Nicolas Topiol, Christian Lacroix president is hoping to hang on to existing clients and attract the next generation at the same time. Short hemlines have been a feature of the Paris ready-to-wear collections this week. Lacroix paraded girls in tiny skirts. Models with bobbed red hair and wooden platform shoes displayed a range of mini dresses with small sleeves and revealing backs. One wore a white lantern dress covered with big yellow disks. Another had a red taffeta balloon dress with shaded houndstooth print and a jet embroidered bustier. Swimsuits sparkled with multicoloured embroidery around almost bare stomachs. Everything this season is very short but what designers are sending down the runway is not necessarily what clients will eventually buy. Hemlines can be lowered in the show rooms. French label Yves Saint Laurent showed its latest line of clothing in the capital's Grand Palais on Thursday night (October 5). Designer Stefano Pilati bathed the entrance to the Palace, which was built for the 1900 World's Fair near the elegant Champs Elysees avenue, in a violet light. Models in spiky-heeled shoes stumbled along a runway made out of earth and thousands of violets as a violet scent wafted through the building. Pilati opened the collection with a black and white belted coat and continued with baggy trouser suits that met at the ankles. Actress Catherine Deneuve and Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova looked on as he finished with a violet flowery dress with ruffles and a cutaway back. The capital's fashion conscious had a scare on Friday (October 6) after news spread that designer Yves Saint Laurent fell in a Paris street and lay motionless in the road for several minutes surrounded by aides. A spokeswoman at the Yves-Saint-Laurent Foundation later said the 70-year-old designer was well and had returned home, denying rumours he was seriously ill. The bespectacled Yves Saint Laurent, whose couture creations have fine art status on four continents, ruled the French fashion world from the age of 21 until his retirement in 2002. He is rarely seen in public. Paris Fashion Week runs until Sunday (October 8). ENDS.

ITN Source | October 14, 2006

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