Live From... Paris Fashion Week, Day 1

Hakaan

Hakaan Yildirim expanded his repertoire this season, and forsook his strict body-con scissoring for a more forgiving look that encompassed the emerging trend for gender-bending looks, as he embraced masculine-inspired tailoring alongside his customary thigh-high silhouettes. 

The look: Masculine/feminine
Silhouette: Soft and slouchy versus thigh-high and vampy
Key items: It is a strange thing that when anyone attempts a masculine/feminine theme, they never think past sexy vixen looks for the feminine flip of the look. Cue thigh-high skirts, slick second-skin shell tops and body-con seaming, to contrast with mannish slouch pants and overscaled blazers. Coats followed the season’s trend for ankle-skimming lengths, and there were long columnar gowns for evening, spliced with sheer inserts and colour-blocked panels
Colour: Sharp and graphic with black and white, offset with the minimalism of scarlet, ink and flannel greyFabrics & knits: Leather and cashmere, dyed furs, satin, sheers, sequins, ostrich feathers, dense jersey
Details & trims: Sheer inserts, body-con seaming, asymmetric hemlines, halternecks
Footwear: Predictable vampy wide ankle-strap courts for the feminine flip to the collection, with flat masculine brogues for the look’s alter-ego
Accessories: Mannish socks

Thimister

Josephus Thimister inhabits the same dark world that designers like Rick Owen and Gareth Pugh visit for their inspiration, a post-apocalyptic netherland of gothic references, monk-like hoods and trailing hemlines, where fashion seems to move on a higher plane than us lesser mortals. 

The look: Post apocalyptic
Silhouette: Androgynous
Key items: Key items may be a misnomer for some of the pieces in this collection, commerciality not being high on the agenda, with boy-morphs-into-girl flowing hooded cape coats, leather shorts, androgynous tunics and billowing caped-back white shirts. There were some feminine touches in the knot-and-drape tops and the fluid cowlneck dresses, while in Thimister land, a dress comes as a monastically simple V-neck silhouette, girdled with a hefty leather belt
Colour: A stripped-back palette of uncompromising measure, with black, white and grey highlighted with a single fizz of champagne-coloured satin
Fabrics & knits: Leather, canvas, satin, goat, shearling, rough-cast hopsack-like textures
Print & pattern: A barely there blurred atmospheric degradé print
Details & trims: Trailing straps were de rigeur on almost every garment; keyhole slashes on tunic topsFootwear: Zipped military boots in black, white, grey or champagne
Accessories: Hefty leather belts

Posted in: A/W 2011/12,hakaan,Paris Fashion Week,Thimister