Roman designer Giambattista Valli filled the Musee d’Art Moderne with frou-frou tulle and sequin minis on Monday evening, the penultimate day of Paris Fashion Week, with a show inspired by a 1968 photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
The image depicts a young woman sitting outside one of the city’s longtime sceney restaurants Brasserie Lipp wearing a micro mini dress of the sort that shot to popularity at the time, while an older woman stares at her disapprovingly.
The show, which riffed on youthful sartorial rebellion, opened with a series of long-sleeved 60s-inspired micro minis in white and pastel colours worn with matching pale tights and sparkly silver platform shoes and moved through to billowing polka dot silk shirts worn with black sequin hot pants and a red sequin slit-leg maxi dress. Again, worn with matching red tights.
Black thigh-high boots – a style that’s been spotted on many a runway this season – just met the hem of panelled mini skirts with skin-flashing, crystal-peppered slits.
A floor length, fur-trimmed coat nodded to the Afghan styles worn by student protesters at the time, while more formal gold buttoned frock coats in red wool and cream boucle represented the wardrobes of more traditional Parisian women.
It wouldn’t be a Giambattista Valli show without some ultra fem frou-frou and this collection closed with two lacey bodycon gowns adorned with giant rings of bouncing tulle; one in mint green and one in a creamy white that’s likely a play for a slice of this year’s bumper bridal season.
Models with ultra balmy high-shine faces, wet-look slicked back hair and shimmering metallic blue eyelids offset the saccharine sweetness with some much-needed cool.
