Paris Fashion Week S/S 2012: Womenswear

Paco Rabanne

If you're going to dive into a fashion heritage as bold and bright as that of Paco Rabanne, there are two ways to go about it. You can either politely reference the past but pave a brand new path, or you can challenge the legacy of the 1960s designer to a chicken fight, going head-to-head on nearly every one of the house's signatures. In his debut as Creative Director, Manish Arora went the ballsy latter route, taking on themes of chain mail, metal and sculptural fashion and blowing them out to costume-like proportions. Heavy metal was everywhere - from python plate chain mail, huge staples holding together metallised fabrics, metal ropes around the shoulders, to chain metal leggings and ski masks. In these clothes there was no room to move, let alone sit down, especially with the metal embroidery that protruded like nails or the finale of gowns that looked as though the models were wearing pleated metal windmills.