So it's Paris Fashion week and we must confess it's always our favourite one. Balmain, Balenciaga, et al - we wait for this grand finale to the fashion week whirl, and digest the offerings like gluttons, even down to scouring the blogs for close-up snaps of the French Vogue team's shoes tottering into the shows, weeks after the whole affair has come to a close.
Paris Fashion Week is where it's at in terms of glamour for us, but it has to be said that Gareth, is not a particularly glamourous, nor fashion-y name. It doesn't have the implied wild flamboyance of say, 'Xavier' or the conjour up images of restrained Gallic chic that maybe you'd expect from someone called 'Pierre'. But Gareth, Gareth Pugh, is currently the hottest name in fashion.
Pugh's S/S 2010 collection is one that we've been waiting for, mostly to see what on earth he was going to do next. He's thus far cemented his fame with wild unwearable stylists-dream/art pieces but it seems that the wild and the crazy, the bold and the unwearable - however fabulous - is not all he's got up his sleeve. Our Gareth showed a shift towards a markedly different direction that still clung to his trademark gothicky style but mixed it with a 19th century cyber punk feeling in the most delicate pallette of smoky grey that extended up to the ashen faces of his models.
It was a mixed collection, with some rather dramatic looks for the boys, all leather corsets and long swooping coats.The women's pieces were a triumph, and for the first time, truly wearable, with tightly belted waists, the most beautiful pale grey leather skinnies, and sheeny metallic minidresses with incredible shoulder configurations. Tailoring, in the more traditional sense of the word, looks to be something that Pugh may explore more in the future since this show demonstrated he's very, very good at it.
We lapped this up, and whilst we hope he doesn't stray too far from that wild and wonderful imagination of his, we're glad he's channelling it into creating real life clothes.
