In the gilded rooms of the Italian embassy, Daniel Roseberry, Schiaparelli’s electric American creative director, continued his foray into surrealism — but make it Instagram-friendly (i.e. add Kylie Jenner to your front row and have her sister Kendall close the show).
The collection, entitled “an everyday sensation” played with Schiaparelli’s key surrealist tropes, giant lobster necklaces fashioned from brass, Converse-like trainers came with trompe l’oeil golden toes, worn with scrunched white socks and wide pinstriped board shorts and coordinated oversized waistcoats. Myriad bijou charms of bulls and ears and teardrops hung from hems.
Shalom Harlow, the indie queen of 90s fashion (famed for Alexander McQueen’s 1999 robot spray paint spectacle) slithered in an extraordinary black embroidered raffia top, inspired by an archival Schiap piece. “I have found that the more familiar the item” explained Roseberry, “a crisp white shirt, a fluid trench, a black smoking blazer — the more joyful it is to rediscover it anew.”
One of the pieces came with an open cigarette packet adorned on it. As an aside, there is something going on with smoking, which has crept back into popular culture as something seemingly acceptable (don’t troll me, I know it’s not).
Kim Kardashian holds a cigarette in her latest CR Fashion Book magazine cover story (styled by ex-French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld). A friend spotted a mannequin in a boutique in Milan reclining, a fag popped in between her plastic fingers; at the Isabel Marant show, one guest was so bored waiting for it to start, she lit up (we were half-outside, under a tent in the Palais Royale).
The New York Times recently ran a piece on Hestia, a hipster tobacco brand with social media catnip branding. A whole generation have grown up without smoking being a given (not on trains, cafés or pubs), there was a long period where smoking was very much non-U, but it feels like it’s creeping back into view. There is, obviously, an Instagram account to support, @cigfluencers, nearly 30,000 followers strong.
Sorry, back to the clothes. At Isabel Marant (back row cigs extinguished), she offered up more of her cult bohemian party people fail-safe formula, with tiny leather hot pants (turning into quite The Thing for spring, though feel free to swerve) crochet dresses that left little to the imagination, and thigh-skimming flirty skirts.
For the men, louche cargo trousers, knitted polo shirts and a high fashion take on the string vest. Watch out Mykonos.
