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Cleopatra glamour kicks off Paris couture week

Reuters - Paris

British designer John Galliano resurrected the splendour of ancient Egypt in his spring-summer haute couture display for Christian Dior, sending out jewelled gowns fit for a modern Cleopatra.

Rays of light bounced off Pyramid gowns made of dozens of golden mirrors, while glamorous mummies paraded in bandages of black silk tulle flashing with rainbow sequins. American actress Sarah Jessica Parker gasped in awe as a model swathed in a gold snakeskin sheath walked like an Egyptian, striking a sideways pose to set off her giant jackal mask representing Anubis, god of the dead.

These madcap creations beat even the most eccentric ensembles worn by Parker’s alter-ego Carrie Bradshaw in ‘Sex and the City’, television’s most trend-setting show. “I was stunned. Is it not the most extraordinary thing?” the diminutive actress told Reuters backstage, during a break between filming scenes for the final episodes of the show. Turning to Bernard Arnault, head of the luxury group LVMH which owns Dior, she raved about the evening dresses, “I want to live in them, sleep in them, bathe in them!”

For beneath the oversized Nefertiti crowns and Pharaonic regalia, there also lurked romantic 1950s ball gowns in mouthwatering shades of peach, tangerine and lemon. Waves of applause greeted a cinched blue silk jacket with a shawl collar scattered with silver embroidery, which was worn over a citrine skirt in mille-feuille layers of stiff organdie. It was another hit for Galliano, whose trademark mix of ethnic influences and flawless tailoring guaranteed a year of bumper sales at Dior in 2003, despite the negative impact of the war in Iraq, the weak dollar and the SARS epidemic.

No doubt hoping the Midas touch might rub off, new comer Julien Fournie borrowed shamelessly from Galliano in his debut for the smaller house of Torrente. Almost every daywear outfit was lifted straight from previous Dior catwalk shows, from the corset lacing and flamenco frills down to the models’ drag queen make-up. The 28-year old designer said the outfits, with names like ‘The Thorny Wood’’ and ‘Voodoo Witch’, were meant to evoke fantasy worlds and childhood fears. Instead, his guests were subjected to a frocky horror show. Fournie’s plagiarism was likely to fuel the debate over catwalk shows and the counterfeiting they generate.

Didier Grumbach, head of the body governing French fashion, last week said the system of showing ready-to-wear outfits six months in advance opened the door to widespread copying of designer creations by high street stores. He suggested holding closed-door presentations for buyers and only showing the outfits to journalists as they are about to go on sale, a move sure to cause uproar among editors of glossy fashion magazines who plan out their pages months in advance.