This was a season that Lanvin explored extremes. From volume, fringing, feathers, fur to unfinished tweed, all were approached with equal measures of flamboyance and freedom on designer Alber Elbaz's part. Raw edges completed shaggy tweed coats, just as the designer's signature ruffles layered up three-quarter length skirts, and fringing danced off his cocktail dresses. Further upping the drama were the season's marabou plumage-laden hats, which possessed both the Edwardian era's elegance and stature - veiling models' eyes like Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady - even down to the show's semi-transparent opera gloves. Where Elbaz did hold back was on a draped strapless leather dress and a supple trench coat, followed by his procession of film noir bias-cut silk sheaths. Although it wasn't long before their edges were similarly finished with bugle beads as well as futuristic rounded-shoulder shapes that received the same jewelled treatment. But that's not to say there wasn't restraint for every flourish, most overtly seen in Elbaz's 1960s-style skirt-suiting, which was almost clean if you simply slipped off a fur shrug.
Photgraphy: Jason Lloyd-Evans
