Paris Fashion Week S/S 2012: Womenswear

Givenchy

Sharp as a tack, Riccardo Tisci nails a razor silhouette and a hot look every season. For Spring/Summer the designer played with the extremes of both femininity and sport. For the former, he employed bouncing scrolls of ruffles along the edges of skin-tight skirts and second-skin jackets. There was a couture quality to the intricate layered peplums on jackets - especially when trimmed in glossy black eel skin or exotic water snake - culminating in a leather and chiffon version leaving silver dollar-sized half-punched holes in the top layer of the clothes. The sportiness came in the sleek, unforgiving lines that barely gave the models room to breathe but were a spectacular foil for the haute techniques, like the close-fitting leggings that are Tisci's bottoms of the season. Last but not least were the silk skirts, held up over shirts with ropes of shiny gold chain, the world's chicest dungarees