Paris Fashion Week AW14

Post by Paul Waters

It’s a Monday evening and I am standing in line at the Icram center a space more commonly used for music and performing arts, it also forms part of the Centre Pompidou complex. For those of you who don’t know the Centre Pompidou is a very controversial building in Paris that houses and hosts modern art and exhibitions on a yearly basis. It seems a very unlikely venue for a fashion show with its cold white walls, concrete floors and industrial feel. But there I stand clutching my ticket to Luis Buchinho’s show being slowly led by the crowds into the foyer of just such a building. The room is buzzing with excitement fashion lovers appear to be adorned with their most, craziest yet stylish of outfits. Jewels and sequins, textures and colors seem to set the cold room on fire when a set of doors swing open and we are led down into the depths of Paris.

Luis Buchinho is a Portuguese fashion designer who has won a variety of awards and has a very large history in the industry. It is clear he is a man of many talents who has achieved a lot.

After navigating a series of tunnels and stairs I arrive into a large square room some where under the streets of Le Marais, Paris. I can’t help but wonder was this journey down to the venue deliberate after all Buchinho’s newest collection is all about illusion, distortion and creating new realities on existing ones. As the lights are dimmed, panels on the wall rotate and move in time to upbeat techno music and disco lighting. The audience is puzzled yet amused a sense of optimism hangs heavily in the air.
The first model takes to the runway I see dull colors, generic cuts and unusual pleats on the chest that reveal shades of an exotic hot pink. It seems less than impressive after the fancy display of lights and moving panels. But as each model appears the glimpses of color and pleats become stronger the styling a little more wacky and just when you think it’s about to climax or evolve into something amazing another model appears; sporting an entirely different look. But there is nothing about the use of heavy fabrics and contrasting colors that seems new or original to me.

Buchinho’s combination of intense textures with lighter fabrics, and a color base of black and white injected with pinks and blues, under pin the modernity, diversity and wearability of the collection. But is that really the image Buchinho set out to create? Is his perception and image of his show sending out mixed imagery? If I wanted modern clothes that are wearable, there are plenty of boutiques and designers that I could go to. As the show comes to an end I cannot help but feel like I have been left craving more, my hunger for fashion and design is unsatisfied.
But perhaps I have been fooled by Buchinho maybe I am missing the illusion or seeing things through distorted eyes after all was that not Buchinho’s objective? The very definition of Illusion is the distortion of senses.