PARIS

Why does fashion keep looking back instead of forward? Why this insistence on skipping from one decade to another, from a mini-skirt to bell bottoms, a Victorian collar to a sky-high split, instead of grounding us in the here and now, exploring it and finding all-new inspirations that looked at the decade’s excesses and transformed them into exaggerated volumes and hemlines: maxi-shoulders (which some extended further with whalebone rods), puff and/or extra-long sleeves, very high waist and short hemlines, extreme asymmetry, high splits, gloss, bold tints but also graphic black & white. There were even some Mohawk crests for those nostalgic for the more extreme end of punk. Is showing your underwear hedonist? Did people use to do that in the ’80s? Well, mesh dresses and tank tops revealed bras, crop tops bared bellies and knits bared the shoulders and shoulder straps, a little like Madonna’s early look or Jennifer Beals in ‘Flashdance’, so perhaps all the corsetry displayed on the runway was harking back to the same period. Due to all the transparencies, veiling, plunging necklines, and underwear as outerwear, leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. The trend showcased a more covered-up, sporty look, featuring the kind of functional workwear that emerged in the mid-’70s and continued for much of the ’80s. Zipped or denim jumpsuits, boxy cassocks with laces, utility trousers with big pockets, k-ways and overcoats in nylon or other technical fabrics – all mixed with military details or romantic hippy-style folk elements.