DO WE STILL NEED FASHION SHOWS?

PARIS TRENDING TOPIC: FASHION’S BIG CHANGE OVER TO WEB

The McQueen show Live Streaming consent form for tonights show. Do you like my hotel bedspread?

- Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large in Paris



This Paris fashion week will be remembered more for the Internet revolution (part II), than the clothes. In a digital era defining week, we have seen more journalists wielding Blackberry’s as note-taking devices than ever. Many of them filing straight to blogs, or twitpic and twitter instead of putting their notes down using old fashioned pen and paper. Next season we’ll probably all have Kindles, or something,

In New York, Marc Jacobs put bloggers, including Tavi and Bryan Boy, on the front row. In Milan, not to be outdone Dolce Gabbana put bloggers on the front row with laptops so they could cover the show live. (It was at this point, btw, that I decided to become a moonlighting blogger.)

In London Burberry put laptops on tap for bloggers who wished to report live from the party. (Didn’t see many takers, we were too busy rubber-necking Dav Patel, Frieda Pinto and Victoria Beckham.)

Anyways, now we are in Paris, and tonight Alexander McQueen is live-streaming his show to the Internet via ShowStudio.com. My invite says “if you attend this show, you will be deemed to grant your consent to being filmed”. Well the show is in three hours, and I’m getting my glad rags on now, and ringing my mum to tell her “I’m going to be on the Internet!”

All this Web hullabaloo is the cause of great debate amongst fashion’s power critics, who are wondering to themselves whether their services will be required next season. Or indeed if we need fashion shows anymore at all. “What is the point of a fashion show critic if you can see the show on the Internet?” "What is the point of a show, if you can put it straight on the Web?"seem to be the big questions. Well I guess in time, the point will be that the general public can read their critical review before deciding they want to watch the show or not. And fashion shows will become the popular entertainment everyone seems to want them to be. Not a trade show anymore, Toto!

One more thing, just been with Roland Mouret who is also filming his show to go out online. His won’t be live-streamed, but he is working with his parent company 19 – who are doing an excellent job at letting him get on with it – to create the first web fashion show you can see in hundreds of thousands of combinations. Even from the point of view of a model, or Anna Wintour (that is, if she hadn’t left Paris already.) He is using 28 camera's each with 360 scope.
This is my McQueen ticket, it's a hologram, and the girl's face becomes all pretty when you wobble it around.

A TRIO OF FASHION SHOW REVIEWS BY LOUISE WILSON

FROM THE FASHION EDITOR AT LARGE IN PARIS....

First, a gratuitous picture of the gorgeous Natalia Vodianova that I took from my perch at Stella McCartney this morning. I’ve been thinking about doing this blog properly for too long. Time to do get on with it! And what better way to start as I mean to go on, than by kicking off with the most straight-talking women in fashion, Professor Louise Wilson, OBE, head of the MA course at St Martin’s. A significant majority of the best young designers working in the world of fashion design today are her former students, and she is held in high esteem by all (that is, if they're not scared of her). These include Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Sophia Kokosalaki and many others. This weekend Louise Wilson was invited to Paris fashion week by Alber Elbaz of Lanvin, her first trip to the Paris shows since 1986. (“Because I’m always in my f***** office.”) I caught up with her at the ‘Guy Bourdin: His Movies’ launch at Le Bon Marche, met Alber Elbaz (jeeezus!) popped a glass of Champagne into her hand, and asked for her personal reviews of the catwalk shows she has seen so far. I was laughing so much while she recounted her views on Margiela that I could barely decipher my notes afterwards. Over to you, Louise!

Louise Wilson and Alber Elbaz last night at 'Guy Bourdin: His Movies' launch at Le Bon Marche in Paris.

LOUISE WILSON ON MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA

“It was horrific on many levels. Having been a long term fan of Martin Margiela you wanted to weep at how a parent company cannot enable their designer. How anyone with a modicum of understanding of the house of Margiela could produce things as bad as that, (Style.com), I don’t know. How anyone could clap for a skirt as long as a runway I cannot imagine, unless they were the people who made the damn thing. The giggling models, and streamers that burst from the lighting rig at the end of the show also ruined it for me.”

“Martin Margiela has left his house because they could not enable him in his work. His work had integrity. I never knew he used Italian mixed jersey. [What she means is, he didn't use the fabric, ever. So further proof he is not actually working there]. The company [Staff International, owned by Diesel founder Renzo Rosso] doesn’t know the brand, and should know better. The show I saw wasn’t trying to appeal the the faithful fans of Martin Margiela, of to lure in new fans, or attract the young to the brand. I don’t know who they were trying to appeal to, maybe a motorbike rider in Rimini?”

Maison Martin Margiela photos by Chris Moore/Catwalking.com

BACKSTORY: (It was confirmed at the weekend that press-shy Belgian Martin Margiela has departed the label he founded in 1988 after it was bought by Diesel owner Renzo Rosso and both clashed on the direction of the company. Rosso told WGSN that Margiela had "left a long time ago". Meanwhile my source says he finally left the building early this year, and had little to do with his Autumn/Winter 2009 collection, and nothing whatsoever to do with the one just presented in Paris. His die-hard fans are in mourning. Though on an up-note for those still pining for genuine Margiela designs, I hear that store-buyers are finding plenty at the showroom. Small consolation, but a consolation nontheless.)

LOUISE WILSON ON LANVIN

“ What I thought of Lanvin was it restored my faith in fashion. It rocked, and it felt young. A lot of fashion is not young enough. And this also felt like an event from cocktail to final dress. What I liked was the angriness; the sexuality; the colour; the crassness of the beading. I think every young designer looking at it should endeavour to put that much work into a collection.” Lanvin SS10 photos by Chris Moore/Catwalking.com

BACKSTORY: (This was mine, and everyone else’s for that matter, show of the week (so far, anyway). Alber recieved a standing ovation at the end, and while watching it, you felt instinctively that this was the best a fashion show could get.)


AND FINALLY, LOUISE ON COMME DES GARCONS...

“Loved the pieces. Loved the silhouettes, but it didn’t feel new. I am someone who is constantly searching for new, and feeling 99.9% of the time that I don’t see it. When I look at the way Comme present their shows I think it’s old fashioned. They are only talking to a certain kind of person. [She means conceptual] The clothes could be relevant for totally different people. I could see some of these as event dresses, for an audience entirely unlike the one they currently have. I am about applauding people trying to do new. If they can’t take that forward themselves what hope is there? It’s like not changing your hairstyle for years. You can get trapped in a look."
CDG SS10 photos by Chris Moore/Catwalking.com

Thank-you Louise. Now all we have to do is find that biker from Rimini you were talking about.