Schiaparelli’s creative director of eclectic couture creations, Bertrand Guyon, had good old fashioned gastronomy on the brain this season and went about seeking all the right ingredients for a fashionable celebration of loving food. You’ve guessed it, the classic Schiaparelli lobster prints were there, hence the old fashioned, but they were hardly as surreal as they were the first time round.
Guyon’s effort was commendable though, mainly because it was such a departure from his first all too sensible collection, this season working with a cemented theme. Proceeding to create couture confections the designer took dinner plates, bunches of cherries and cutlery to ball gown prints, used shocking pink like candy floss on gowns ruffled from collarbone to catwalk and did ladylike daywear destined for tea for two.
Subduing the rest of the collection for the most part Guyon then worked primarily with generous swathes of luxe sighs of silk, ordering these around the body. In some instances this looked a little clumsy but for the most part it created some appropriate haute couture drama and this is what he should be bringing to Schiaparelli.
Elsewhere and as special as it is to see it, the all seeing Dali-esque encrusted eye was spotted on one too many garments and it does feel that if Guyon doesn’t get a little more creative than just doing things like this, and soon, Schiaparelli as a newly reborn couture house will stagnate. The clear cut culinary theme made Spring 2016 as tasty as Schiaparelli has been so far under his direction however, so fingers crossed the themes keep getting bigger and better from herein.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Schiaparelli