There's nothing like a heavy dose of irony to get a John Galliano show going. This season, plenty of attention has been paid to the internet surge of fashion shows. Designers are, now more than ever, streaming shows live online or uploading videos from the runway shortly after the models head home with their goodie bags. That takes away some exclusivity of appearing in person when the lights dim. But this week in Paris, Galliano gave countless reasons to see the real deal: Try a laser-lit runway with bubbles surrounding the models, then turning to vapor, and one of the designer's best show in years. Even so, you could say that his level of spectacle is on the decline.
How fitting, then, for Galliano to reference the Old-Hollywood era when silent-film stars watched themselves be pushed out of their industry. Galliano told Style.com: "It came from a research trip to L.A. I went around the old houses of Hollywood and imagined how stars like Tallulah Bankhead, Lillian Gish, and Mary Pickford lived." So a collection of teensy silk slips, peekaboo chiffon gowns and evening coats lavished with film-gel roses celebrated a dying exuberance that probably would never resurface, if you ask him.
We loved seeing Magdalena Frackowiak and Natasha Poly accessorised to the nines, with lace gloves and black-feather adorned hats seen as second nature. Lace jackets over cardigans, pale folded socks with platform Mary Janes - it reminded us of a time when more careful attention was paid to dress. And yet as much as we were swept up in the fancy, we got that 'Sunset Boulevard' sense of melancholy that times are changing, and people are moving on.
The one good sign we have here? That with designers like Galliano leading the pack, there's still time left to live like Tallulah.
