Akris A/W 2014

This is the tenth year that Albert Kriemler has shown his Akris collection in Paris, a milestone that the Swiss designer celebrated with a collaboration with artist Thomas Ruff. A certifiable art lover, Kriemler chose seven of Ruff's cosmic-inspired images and digitally reproduced them across several looks in the last third of the show. The Night Series, a group of works that Ruff created using residual light amplifiers in urban areas near Düsseldorf from 1992-1996, glowed with an otherworldly green over trapeze capes and matching suiting. The ma.r.s. series featured the bumpy, boiled surface of Mars, based on black and white images captured by a NASA orbiter. Another, entitled Cassini, included streams of light shooting across juicy blood red orange mink. This space action came to a big bang conclusion in the finale where Kriemler buried swirling trails of LED lights into sharp black suits, filmy dresses and even voluminous tulle ball gowns. Though the dresses effectively guaranteed his woman's chances of lighting up a room, this last move felt just a tad gimmicky in an otherwise strong show. We much preferred Kriemler's expert handling of his two-tone astrakhan dresses, the snow-white curled lambswool sleeveless coats, and the black hooded lambswool dress worn under a wool trapeze coat: all of which proved exactly why Kriemler is still a player in Paris after all these years.