Gertrude Jekyll
catwalking, style.com (throughout)Upon seeing the Dries Van Noten show during Paris Fashion Week yesterday my first thought was - Summer is here. And my second was Lanvin. Not because the Dries Van Noten show borrowed or referenced that collection heavily, but because the mood in both was eerily similar. It's almost as if Van Noten and Elbaz stuck their heads together and envisioned their perfect summer - bright, bold and young.
From the very glimpse of pleated beige trousers with a smorgasbord of prints on top and sensible, classic bags I was instantly transported into this world of resort glamour, if updated a little bit to fit into city life. Where Lanvin was unashamedly riviera - the lanvin customer can, and does, spend thousands on a pretty little outfit to sun on a beach in st tropez - Van Noten knows that this is a spring/summer collection, and is just as likely to be worn on the streets of London as it is on a boat in Lake Como. He updated his Spring/Summer collection from 2008 and took it into the here and now. His usual cacophony of colour and print subdued with the occasional shot through of block colour and the clean, simple lines. Van Noten can mix like no other, though, and he's at his best when throwing prints together haphazardly to create a look that is wholly unique. Tricky to take on, undoubtedly, but if you have that sunny disposition that prints so require (try wearing a print when you're in a cynical, sarcastic mood and get back to me), as well as an effusive grin then you'll get by just fine.
This Summer i know i'll be ferreting out all the print, bold colour and riviera neutrals (beige, khaki, brown and french navy) that i can find to mix and match like a Van Noten superwoman. Not least because I do like to mix my prints, the effect that my vintage lanvin sheer floral print shirt and my checked skirt have with each other is wonderful. Also because, despite what fashion might dictate with its spiked heels and black sharp-shouldered jackets, summer isn't really a time for seriousness and vamp. Although i might wax lyrical about the beauty of a pencil skirt and white shirt, implicit in this is the fact that these clothes are to be worn in winter. To wear such things in summer is to rain on the parade, to turn up at a byo party empty handed.
In Summer you are supposed to dress in this brash and excitable way, where one print is fine, but 3 is better, and as you're leaving the house you don't take off one accessory you add 6 more. There is nothing that rings in Summer more for me than beach-side ice cream cones held in an arm jangling with resin bangles and charm bracelets. Whilst a pair of earrings dangle from your lobes. And a huge cocktail ring winks from your fourth finger. Summer is all about excess, too much sun, too many cocktails, too much... No-one pares back in summer. Sure, for the lead up to Summer there are the girls who detox and subsist on pepper water and dried fish so they can look great in a bikini, but when December the 1st comes round, rosy and rotund, they're tucking into the berry thickshakes and grilled fish just like the rest of us.
If you're unsure about the print orgy then tone it down with a cashmere jumper or just go all out with the accessories. Dries Van Noten's collection showed an equal amount of print-tastic pieces for the wild as well as the subdued jumpers, pants and mini trench coats for the discerning eye. As always his proportions were spot on, pants tapering to a cuffed hem just above the ankle, crop tops revealing a wink of skin above a pair of drawstring pants. Duster coats in the unmistakeable summer hues of tangerine orange cut long and lean in the length but a little shorter in the width, so they hung as if just resting on the model's shoulders. Perfect for the type of girl who likes to wear a coat but still wants people to see what the colour of her top underneath it (guilty). Everything was cut with that boxy silhouette of his that manages to float away from the body and yet define it irrevocably. There are few other designers today who have such a grasp on the more is more trend. Few other designers except Alber Elbaz, that is.
I've said it before that Alber Elbaz's designs are refreshing in the way that a glass of creamy milk can be with a slice of rich chocolate cake. He's too much, and just a little bit camp. But the more he throws on the girls - paste jewelry, tassels, cone heels, chain handles, big sunglasses, bold bangles, ruched, ruffles, scrunching, prints, hats - the more it works. I honestly believe that Elbaz's designs would not make so much of an impact just by themselves, removed from the theatrics. And that is not a bad thing, on the contrary, that is marvelous. Elbaz is one of the only designers today who is unabashedly bringing back excessive glamour. And not in the 'balmainia', disco slut way. In the old-school peggy guggenheim way with exaggerated jewelry and a wry smile. The type of woman who is still wearing her pearls and elbow length gloves when she's 90, sipping a double espresso in a Paris cafe. The type of girl who walks home at 6 am in the morning after a big night out with her eyeliner smudged and her hair mussed up, but still defiantly strutting in her party dress and shoes. The girl who goes to a resort and brings 4 suitcases for a fortnight-long trip. But she's travelling by her hubby's private jet, so who cares, anyhow?
But, it must be said, these aren't the kind of looks you can wear all summer. These are December looks to slip into when Spring, swollen with rain, shifts imperceptibly into dry Summer. When every night stretches out languidly before you without end and every time you look at the sea it seems to be a different colour. Your printed dresses go with everything - with salty air, beachy waves, the sweet acidity of lemon over chargrilled octopus. They go with mojito-sodden nights spent laughing over everything from the sunset to the sunrise with friends. They go with walks from beach to beach in little leather sandals and a wide-brimmed hat. They go with summer stillness seen through the deep belly of a chardonnay filled glass.
But once December moves steadily into January, and summer morphs into heady stickiness those endless days aren't as charming as they are a chore. All you want to do is lie around the house, fanning yourself carelessly with a recent grazia. You can do that in a long printed strapless gown, of course, but its bright colours can be a little disarming. So you file your prints away, preparing for Autumn. You start counting down the days until you can bring out those cardigans, those comfy leggings, those all-enveloping coats. But when the leaves start to turn their colours remind you of those azure skies and eternal promise of early summer.
So i know what i'll be wearing come summer. And even though in February you may find me lying down with a hat firmly over my face doing nothing at all I'll be thinking wistfully of that fresh-faced youthfulness of early summer where it was all prints, all the time. I hope you will be too.
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