The Paris couture shows can go one of two ways: they either offer designers a chance to plunder the outermost limits of their creativity and passion, or they are an exclusive, elegant and exuberant stage upon which to show the fundamentals of a label, to crack the code of its DNA at the most opulent and luxurious level:

John Galliano gazed at Dior’s heritage and showed New Look-line dresses and skirt suits, eschewing the Belle Epoque aesthetic that he has been tinkering with recently.

At Chanel too the emphasis was on the label’s central message of discreet and functional luxury, with simple shift dresses frosted with gnarled branch-like patterns in crystal.

The signature was all but rewritten at Armani Prive meanwhile, where precise and regulated tailoring gave way to a sterner, curvilinear geometry, with side-sweeping cutaway dresses and heavy gemstones-embellished tops.
No such subtlety at Valentino, however, where butterflies adorned chokers, tiered silk chiffon skirts fell to the floor and light coats were trimmed with turquoise stranded feathers.

Riccardo Tisci was another designer to play with neutrals at Givenchy, where sheer chiffon gowns continued his recent feel for translucence and showed off the house’s great craftsmanship.

And finally, Jean Paul Gaultier took inspiration from an altogether more earthy source: a punked version of the Moulin Rouge. He presented a whirlwind of a collection that culminated in a scarlet-haired model dancing the can-can along the catwalk.

Images all from the Jean Paul Gaultier Show.

Read the original blog post here on Another Magazine.