Minus half a day devoted to discussing whether McQueen really was going to design Kate Middleton’s dress, unsurprisingly the talk at the Paris shows centred on Galliano. Galliano at the Meadows, Galliano and the library of offensive video footage dating back two years, which apparently LVMH possess, and endless speculation as to who will eventually succeed him. It was hard not to feel sorry for the buyers who now face the mother of all headaches deciding the fate of the Galliano lines that they carry. Although, as one international buying director told The Times, “It’s no secret in the industry that his own label has been underperforming for some time. And plenty of retailers are using the whole debacle as the perfect excuse to drop it”.
Clearly fashion is quite a contrary industry but we’re reneging on ever suggesting that Haider Ackermann would be a worthy contender for the Dior crown. Judging by his show on Saturday morning, he managed to transform even the eternally gorgeous Freja Beha Erichsen, above, into a first prize root veg specimen at a Dorset village fair. Now how would that sit with Dior’s saddle-bag fans in Dubai?
Fashion editors were e-mailed shortly before the Céline show to be told that they would no longer be allowed to take pictures and post them online. The same applied at the Claudia Schiffer presentation and more famously chez Tom Ford. Quite who was policing this offence was hard to tell. Sure enough those bloggers flipped, tweeted and snapped away. Come on guys, do you actually want to sell clothes?
Style crush 1
Is Natalia Vodianova the most perfect woman on the planet?
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On Sunday, the Russian supermodel ran in the Paris half-marathon, raised tens of thousands of euros for charity, and then hotfooted it over to Givenchy to bestride the catwalk without a hint of runner’s stiffness. First thing Monday morning, she breezed into the Stella McCartney show with her (beautiful) children and then took them straight off to Disneyland Paris. Vodianova — you CAN have it all.
Style crush 2
Move over Giovanna Battaglia, team Times found a new style crush this week at the Paris shows — one Tabitha Simmons. Could she sound cooler on paper? Ex-model turned US Vogue contributing stylist/shoe designer of fabulous heels that all fashion eds clamour for. Oh, and the photographer husband (Craig McDean), the two kids and owner of the best pair of red trousers we’ve seen (a bargain $60 from NY store and website Trash and Vaudeville in case you’re wondering). We’d want to kill her if she wasn’t so darned nice.
Super-haute leather house Hermès is determined to fend off Bernard Arnault, the real-estate man turned supremo at LVMH, the world’s most powerful luxury conglomerate. Arnault has now picked up a 20.2 per cent stake in Hermès, but insists that he wants Hermès to love him, not fear him. The Birkin bagmakers seem unconvinced. “If you want to seduce a beautiful woman,” said Hermès CEO Patrick Thomas this week, “you don’t start from raping her from behind.”
Very elegant.
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We owe an apology to Riccardo Tisci. Speculating last Wednesday as to who Arnault might recruit to replace Galliano at Dior, we named Tisci alongside Phoebe Philo, Marc Jacobs, Stefano Pilati and various others. But alas! The picture of a pouting Italianate check-scarf-wearing gentleman we said was Tisci, was not Tisci. As a representative of the wronged designer, below, told us, “Riccardo is much better-looking.” We agree, but do you? And do you know who the mystery snood-wearer is? We owe him an apology too.