Paris menswear designers break out Jesus sandals, gender-bending garb for spring-summer 2011

Paris menswear designers break out Jesus sandals

PARIS — Androgynous silhouettes and sensible sandals are set to be the must-have looks for next summer, if the first day of Paris’ four-day-long menswear collections Thursday was anything to go by.

Gender-bending looks ruled the spring-summer 2011 catwalk at Jean Paul Gaultier, where strapping models draped in postage-stamp-sized towels lounging in a mock hammam opened a show inspired by the androgynous style of the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent during his years in Marrakech. Post-apocalyptic androgyny — think sleeveless Barbarella vests worn with platform stripper boots — was the name of the game at California-born designer Rick Owens’ somber show.

Emerging French designer Alexis Mabille push the androgynous envelope, sending out models that looked as if they’d just rolled in field of daisies, the dainty white and yellow flowers tangled in their flowing locks and stuck to their abbreviated jumpsuits.

Louis Vuitton, the luxury giant that got its start as a trunk maker, continued to explore the idea of the journey, sending out a travel-ready collection of packable separates with Chinese touches and sensible sandals that were made for walking. Japanese label Issey Miyake also delivered comfortable weekend-away looks, though the official line at the cerebral house was that the cunning Japanese river trout was the inspiration for the collection.

Besides comfortable-but-heinous Jesus sandals, another strong look across Paris’ menswear catwalks were jumpsuits. Mabille’s were cut short and decked out in sequins, while Miyake’s were made of deep indigo denim dotted with white rings — in homage, perhaps, to the spotted scales of the trout.

Paris’ menswear displays move into day two on Friday with shows by coveted French heritage labels Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent, Dior designer John Galliano and his Dior Homme counterpart, Belgium’s Kris Van Assche.

JEAN PAUL GAULTIER

You’ve got to love any fashion show where the models are musclebound hunks and their “outfits” consist of the tiniest of towels. Gaultier’s Chippendale-sized models opened the show in a mock hammam at the top of the catwalk, dousing each other with water and giving one another deep tissue back massages.

It was a lascivious start to a show that faintly dripped with retro sensuality.

Kaftans with Gaultier’s signature transparent paneling were paired with harem pants, while kinky, lace-front tunics were worn with minuscule Speedos in X-rated, see-through tulle that got downgraded to R thanks to strategically placed opaque patches.

Gaultier said the collection was inspired by the late, great French couturier Saint Laurent, who lived in Marrakech and adopted traditional Moroccan dress into his androgynous style.

“It was a mix between Saint Laurent’s elegance, the way he dressed in the 1970s, the Moroccan influence and the psychedelic spirit of that period,” the genial French designer told reporters after the show.

Special 3-D glasses were needed to fully appreciate the wacky prints on the silk robes and pajama pants that closed the show, and the audience of fashion insiders donned the least chic possible accessory — paper glasses with one blue eye and one red eye that were in actuality the show invitations — to take in the fluttering garments in all their vaguely three-dimensional glory.

“It’s like being on mushrooms, or something,” said Gaultier, adding with a wink, “not that I’ve ever done that.”

Despite its languid, steam-clouded start, the show ended with a theatrical bang, with the bathing-suit clad models soaking one another — and Gaultier — ahead of their final lap down the runway. One, appropriately playing the part of the hammam’s traditional water bearer, took a spill on the slick catwalk.

ALEXIS MABILLE

In these hard times for retail, the French designer went out on a limb with this collection of romantic, body-baring looks that looked to have been made for gender-bending flower children with poetic souls. Standouts included Speedo-style briefs in champagne lame and sequin-covered sweat pants — both paired solely with daisy-chain necklaces.

Even the more conventional looks, like slim-legged linen suits, were strewn with the dainty flowers, as if the models had just rolled in a springtime meadow.

It was hard to fathom exactly what demographic Mabille was aiming for with these hard-to-wear, hard-to-sell looks, but one thing was clear: The Mabille man was either remarkably sure of his manliness or he simply couldn’t be bothered care.

RICK OWENS

“Androgynous tough guys” sounds like an oxymoron, but Owens’ menacing-yet-ladylike models proved you can be at once gender-bending and utterly manly.

Translucent, asymmetrical tank tops were paired with drop-crotched trousers and vertiginous platform boots, and butchers’ aprons topped sleeveless vests in a patchwork of neoprene and leather. Owens gave a whole new meaning to chunky footwear, wrapping the model’s calves and feet in conical flaps of distressed leather.

The broody California-born, Paris-based designer, whose post-apocalyptic chic has made him a critical darling, broke no new ground with Thursday’s show, which drew extensively on his perennial favorite looks — for both his women’s and men’s lines. Still, the one-shouldered tanks and the platform boots — which gave the male models the stilted, leaned-back gait of their female counterparts — helped lighten the looks.

Front-row guests did frequent double-takes, straining both neck and eyes to check whether the high-heeled models actually were men.

Halfway through the show, spouts hanging from above the catwalk started spitting out bursts of dry ice. The fashion glitterati held their noses and fanned their faces with the collection notes as opaque clouds shrouded the runway. At one point, the models’ leather-bound feet were the only thing visible through the fog.

DRIES VAN NOTEN

Sensible shoes were de rigeur at Dries Van Noten, where models in skinhead chic looks trod the raw cement catwalk of a River Seine-side dock.

Van Noten, a Belgian globe-trotter whose magpie eye has made him a critical darling, again delivered a show that straddled continents, weaving together elements culled from punk-era London and 1970s street culture in Paris and New York.

Skinhead combat boots and cargo pants were paired with paint-splattered button-down shirts with mismatched sleeves, while chambray shirts were worn with high-water trousers in velvety butterscotch wool and thick-strapped sandals. Bleach-spattered denim again had its day in the sun, as Van Noten sent out pantsuits made entirely from the fabric — beloved by the friendly, proto-skinheads of the early ’70s.

“It’s really a mixture of the energy of three cities, but blending it altogether into one collection,” Van Noten told The Associated Press in a backstage interview. “In the end, it’s a lot of (elements) that men know, but mixed up differently, and men feel comfortable in it.”

The crowd of fashion insiders got pretty comfortable, too. The show was held on docks along the Seine, and the crowd of tightly wound editors, stylists and journalists sipped beer from the can and dangled their feet over the river as they waited for the show to start.

LOUIS VUITTON

The luxury supernova looked east with a collection of sumptuous travel pieces embellished with Chinese touches that appeared aimed at its growing Asian customer base.

Quilted blazers were made of luminous silks, and whiskered Chinese dragons dressed up the leather totes and other accessories that are one of the historic trunk maker’s main cash cows. Models sported temporary tattoos of Chinese zodiac signs — sometimes intermingled with Vuitton’s interlocking LV symbols — on their necks and calves, and their translucent button-down shirts were printed with similar tattoo designs.

“China is becoming really important,” menswear designer Paul Helbers told The AP in a preview of the collection — which was built, he said, partly around the sartorial style of high-rollers at Shanghai casinos. Helbers cited Amazon skydivers and Scandinavian midsummer revelers as his other main references for the collection.

“It’s about the idea of travel without leaving home, (made for) the digital bohemian who travels while staying behind his computer screen,” he said.

Made largely out of feather-light nylon and silk, the collection is meant to be packed. One jacket, in lizard skin nylon print, transformed into a lightweight backpack when folded, origami-style. Feather-light cotton scarves were wrapped around the models’ waists in guise of belts.

New York-based tattoo artist Scott Campbell was behind the Chinese tattoo prints that dressed up the scarves, shirts, totes and models. A close personal friend of Marc Jacobs — the Vuitton creative director who oversees all the label’s collections — Campbell did 29 out of Jacobs’ 31 tattoos, the designer said.

Still, Jacobs balked at the idea that the Chinese imagery was aimed at seducing the burgeoning Asian luxury market.

“China is obviously a great market and everyone talks about the modernity and the interest of it … but I think probably the least appealing thing to the Chinese market is any kind of Asian reference,” Jacobs said in a backstage interview. “It wasn’t about appealing from a business point of view.”

ISSEY MIYAKE

In the list of collections with the most bizarre inspirations, Miyake’s trout-themed show ranked right up there.

The house’s zany, brainy designer Dai Fujiwara said he’d looked for inspiration back to the summers of his youth, which he spent his splashing around in rivers and streams, unsuccessfully stalking trout.

“They were so fast, at the same time cautious and patient and foxy and careful,” Fujiwara told The AP in a preview. “I like the character of this fish.”

Fujiwara delivered boxy suits with red and orange dots that mimicked the trout’s spotted camouflage and bow-ties studded with tackle. A button-down shirt was fitted out with a red pocket perfect for storing fishing paraphernalia, and a pleated nylon vest mirrored the ever-changing shades of trout’s scales.

The collection was rife with the sorts of unostentatious sartorial details that don’t shine on the catwalk, like hidden pockets and innovative fabric with chalk stripes that fade in and out.