Fashion Brands by Tungate Mark

Author:Tungate, Mark [Tungate, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kogan Page
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

The collections

For a designer, the fashion show is a way to broadcast ideas. It is a medium.

Watching a fashion show can be an exhilarating experience. Watching 50 in a week is an exquisite form of torture. At least, that seems to be the opinion shared by many of the people filing into the Chanel show at the Grand Palais. Some of them have been on the road for nearly a month, starting with New York fashion week before moving on to London, Milan – and now Paris. With their bright plumage and malicious eyes, they look like waterfowl descending on a marsh.

I am not an accredited fashion journalist – I am, as always, an interloper in their world – so I wait outside, observing the comings and goings. The show is due to start in about half an hour. Everybody knows it will not begin on time. That would be unfashionable.

The bi-annual women’s prêt-à-porter collections in Paris, which take place in March and October, are among the most important events (some would say they are the most important events) in the fashion calendar. There are other fashion weeks around the world – in Miami, Barcelona, Sydney and Hong Kong, to name a few – but they lack the prestige of the four major spectaculars. There’s a whole raft of trade shows and expos that attract little attention outside the textile industry. And then there are the haute couture shows, which these days have taken on the air of performance art. But we’ll return to those later. For the moment, the circus surrounding the spring/summer prêt-à-porter collections is in full swing. This week, as many as 2,000 journalists and 800 buyers are in town.

People arrive and kiss one another on both cheeks, then stand around ostentatiously fanning themselves with their gold-dust invitations. Suzy Menkes of the International Herald Tribune sweeps regally past, unmistakable with her cresting-wave hair-do. A parasitical gaggle of hangers-on – a large percentage of them young bloggers – take photographs of everything that moves. Although I, too, am a hanger-on, a residue of pride prevents me from doing the same. I already know that I don’t have a chance in hell of getting in to the Chanel show.

And yet, on a couple of occasions now, I’ve interviewed the most important figure on the Paris fashion circuit.

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