UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – 8th Mar, 2022, Paris: The conflict in Ukraine has overshadowed Paris Fashion Week, which concludes on Tuesday. Designers are finding it difficult to strike a balance between their presentations’ glitz and spectacle and their sympathy statements.
Some designers included poignant tributes to the Ukrainian people in their fall/winter designs for women; none more so than Demna, the designer for Balenciaga.
He acknowledged that fashion week felt “an absurdity” in light of the turmoil in Ukraine, having personally fled his own Georgia during a conflict in the early 1990s.
However, he came to the conclusion that to cancel the performance would have been to “surrender to the evil that has already injured me so much for over 30 years.”
Demna (who has ceased using his Gvasalia) opened his performance by reciting a Ukrainian poetry and covering the audience’s chairs with the nation’s blue and yellow flag.
– Russian show cancelled – France’s fashion federation announced on Sunday that it was cancelling Russian designer Valentin Yudashkin’s show on the final day for failing to condemn the war. The organisation had urged attendees to experience the week “with solemnity, and in reflection of these dark hours.”
“Our group sought to find out if, like other artists, he would isolate himself. That has not happened, “AFP was informed by federation president Ralph Toledano.
Yudashkin, a long-time presenter in Paris, contributed to the creation of the most recent Russian army outfits.
Because of the riches that come from Russia’s ultra-wealthy elite, luxury houses have been hesitant to follow other businesses in severing their ties to the country.
Some publicised donations, such as Louis Vuitton’s million-euro pledge for Ukrainian children. The business reported record annual sales of 64.2 billion euros ($70 billion).
Others went with peaceful messages.
John F. Kennedy’s stirring Cold War speech from 1963 served as the show’s opening and closing music, respectively, according to Stella McCartney, who also sang her father’s former bandmate John Lennon’s song “Give Peace a Chance.”
– Body armour – Particularly at Dior and Balmain, where models appeared to be donning body armour, some of the clothing this week felt oddly predictive.
Olivier Rousteing of Balmain stated that the idea for the golden shields and flak jackets really came from the painful face burns he had in a home mishap and the subsequent anxiety of being ridiculed online.
Maria Grazia Chiuri, the creative director of Dior, claimed that her own “defensive” creations, such as airbag corsets and vests with internal heating, were a reflection of the reality that “the globe was already at war” even before the invasion of Ukraine.
“It was a different kind of conflict. All of us have gone through some really trying months “She informed AFP.
Darker tones: This fashion week was meant to mark the easing of pandemic limitations and the reintroduction of live performances in practically all houses.
The adoring crowds who flocked to the streets of Paris to welcome celebrities like Rihanna, Bella Hadid, Serena Williams, and a very pregnant Bella Hadid were undoubtedly in a happy mood.
However, many designs were still becoming darker despite the current state of the planet.
Silky dresses, classy suits, and faux-fur jackets by Saint Laurent were nearly complete darkness
Hermes, Rochas, Givenchy, and Isabel Marant all went for primarily dark and monochromatic colour schemes.
Even American designer Rick Owens, whose presentation Vice called “transcendental,” made adjustments.
Usually, ear-splitting techno and industrial sounds accompany his bold, apocalyptic designs.
Instead, he chose Mahler’s Fifth Symphony this time, describing it as “a music I would have judged excessively emotional in the past but more suited to the sobriety and quest for hope in our contemporary circumstances.”
