Almost French (26 page)

For extra emphasis, the French often repeat things three times. It’s a sign of utter conviction. An excellent meal will be
vraiment, vraiment, vrai-ment bon
. A vicious dog will be described as
très, très, trèèès méchant
. This repetition means the statement is non-negotiable, ruling a firm black line through the possibility of disagreement and even discussion.

‘
Non, non, non
,’ the public relations person at Christian Dior says to me now. ‘You can’t have a ticket.’

She doesn’t care that I write for Australia’s national newspaper. She has received more than one thousand ticket requests from publications around the world and there are only two hundred seats at the show for press. ‘
Vous voyez, Madame
, we can only invite the most important journalists. We have to draw the line somewhere.’ Having learnt to be more pushy in France, I babble about how readers from Brisbane to Broome are gagging for news about the clothes soon to step onto the Paris runways (which because of the reverse seasons will not appear in Australia for another nine months, if they do at all). She would be doing my country a disservice—her fashion house too—by excluding me. The gist of my bluster is: this publication is important;
I
am important.

There is silence at the other end of the line. The PR has hung up.

Two weeks of phoning, faxing, arguing and pleading
produces about thirty invitations, mostly from obscure designers I have never even heard of. Somehow, I manage to squeeze my bottom onto several sought-after seats. But even this is not the thrill I expected. Invariably, I am in row O of a configuration that stops at P, which means that, although I can make out what the models are wearing from the waist up, their lengthy lower halves are obscured by fourteen rows of heads. At Stella McCartney’s show for Chloé, Kate Moss minces out in a dainty see-through camisole. But is she wearing trousers or a skirt with it? Are hemlines thigh or ankle length this season? I can only guess.

Alicia—who by now has realised her dream and is writing for some of the world’s top fashion publications—fills me in on the bits of outfits I miss and the major shows for which I couldn’t get tickets. But not actually seeing the clothes is not the only thing hampering my ability to write an informed summary of the ready-to-wear season. Although I fill notebooks with careful descriptions and even the occasional mad, stick-figure sketch drawn in the dark, none of this helps me actually remember the outfits when I’m in front of my computer. The week-long parade of ready-to-wear clothes has become a blur.

On the world fashion map, London is innovative, Milan has style and New York is imbued with 7th Avenue savvy of the bottom line. The Paris shows have traditionally been about monumental beauty and extravagance. But recently, an influx of commercially orientated foreigners have taken over the design chairs at Louis Vuitton, Céline, Cerruti and Loewe. For the venerable fashion houses, they represent an exciting injection of youth and talent. Their clothes are casual and clean and immensely wearable.

The trouble is under my untrained fashion eye, one
beautifully cut, minimalist trouser suit looks a lot like the next. By the end of the week I’ve exhausted the adjectives wearable, easy, pared-down, slick, sleek, sporty, contemporary, no-fuss. I can no longer discern one designer from another. The truth is these expensive clothes didn’t seem that special, really. They didn’t make me pine. My first Paris show season ends in disappointment.

But if ready-to-wear leaves me nonplussed, the same can’t be said of haute couture. In Paris, the fashion calendar is divided into four show seasons: ready-to-wear falls in March and October, haute couture is held in January and July. When the same editor asks me to cover the July collections, this time I know the ropes. I get accreditation from the Chambre Syndicale, which makes getting tickets less of a trial. You still have to fax each fashion house and push to be invited to the most prestigious shows but haute couture generates far less interest than ready-to-wear and the reduced demand for tickets makes securing a seat relatively easy. The couture calendar is far more leisurely too, with only about twenty shows. And this time I know not to stray from the dress code: head-to-toe black.

Made to measure haute couture is what sets Paris apart from the other fashion capitals. The industry doesn’t exist anywhere else. Which is probably a good thing, I tell myself. For me, it conjures up arty, spectacular gowns that you might buy for a fancy dress party if they didn’t come with telephone figure price tags. The number of couture clients has slipped to less than two thousand women world-wide—most of them Arabian princesses or Hollywood stars. What’s the point in wildly creative clothes that almost no-one can afford? I head to my first show convinced that haute couture is an obsolete extravagance.

The Austerlitz train station in east Paris seems like an odd venue but that’s the address on the Dior invitation. Designer John Galliano is renowned for staging epic extravaganzas based on historical themes. What’s he up to this time? I check the ticket to make sure my seat number is not some sly code for ‘standing’. Fb5. It sounds reassuring.

Stepping inside the train station, I blink in disbelief. The scene shimmers like a desert mirage, too glorious to be true. Palm trees sway above saffron-coloured sand; exotic carpets line luminous tents. Baskets of fresh dates, figs and fragrant tangerines are sprinkled between seats which snake between two train platforms. Flat silver dishes contain a painter’s palette of silky spices—cinnamon, cumin, saffron, ginger, turmeric, paprika. Waiters in colonial white carry trays of Turkish delight. The air is redolent with rosewater and preserved lemons, reminding me of the Marrakech souk. And what’s that over there? Champagne and long glasses of amber Pimms!

Flute in hand, I’m shown to my seat. More like a bench, really, it’s actually an old-fashioned trunk, covered in a purple silk cushion. Unbelievably, it is in the front row. (In fact, there are only two very long rows of seats in this unusual venue.) The trouble is, someone is already occupying it. The intruder is wearing dark Gucci sunglasses and her hair is sculpted into a perfect bob which is dyed that mahogany colour French women adore. This is an ominous sign. In my experience these women usually have formidable temperaments to match.

The usher asks to see her ticket and with an irritated sigh she hands it over.

‘Your place is over there, Madame,’ he says politely, pointing to a seat in the row behind.

Instead of apologising for her mistake, she pushes the
Guccis on top of her head, revealing a frown. ‘No,’ she says emphatically. ‘This is
my
place. The other usher,’ her poppy nails wave vaguely westward, ‘told me to sit here.’

The usher asks would she mind very much standing, please, because the name of each guest is written on their seat. This will clarify the ‘misunderstanding’. But incredibly, she refuses to budge. Instead, the precious fashion princess eyes me with steely composure.

‘I don’t understand why you’re making such a fuss, Madame. Every seat has a good view. Why don’t you just take that one over there?’ And she points to the vacant place behind. Her seat.

The usher is young and judging from his dismayed look, I’d say this is his first experience of a fashion show. He doesn’t know what to do. Neither do I. Although furious, I’m loath to make a scene—especially when the distance between her seat and mine is a matter of centimetres. In the back of my mind is the doubt that maybe I wasn’t meant to be in the front row at all, someone has made a mistake. I go and sit in her spot, where her name and publication are clearly written. The view is fine. But the incident irks me. This is my first lesson in show etiquette.
Don’t be a pushover
. In future I will stand my ground.

To calm down, I take another flute of champagne and fill a paper napkin with exquisitely tender Turkish delight. Several seats along, an American voice loudly wonders how anyone could possibly contemplate alcohol on such a hot day. It would go straight to her head. (It’s gone straight to mine, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?) Scanning the crowd, I realise I’ve broken another unwritten rule. Except for some errant Europeans, everyone else is sipping a different kind of bubbly—bottled water.

The temperature in the station hangar matches the desert setting. It must be even hotter inside the train parked on the platform opposite, apparently, where spectators sit frantically fanning themselves with their programs. Frazzled heads hang out the windows for fresh air. These stuffy carriages are the equivalent of standing tickets. (That could have been me!) Those stuck in the desert don’t look happy, either. Clouds of the richly coloured sand have been kicked into the air and everywhere you look people are impatiently slapping stains from their clothing. The tension levels in Gare d’Austerlitz soar with the centigrade.

More than one hour after the show was supposed to start, the by now totally fed-up audience is silenced by the whine of a train whistle. All eyes turn to a shimmering orange curtain. Suddenly a steam locomotive bursts through it—the Diorient Express. Out tumbles a cargo of Indian braves and top models in a puff of steam. Wow—what an opening!

I don’t think anyone understood the clothes that followed. Not even the man who made them (afterwards, when he tripped out of the train to take his bow, John Galliano looked a little spaced out as though he was as bewildered as the rest of us). As usual, the British designer based his theme on a central, historical character. This time it was Princess Pocahontas, played by Naomi Campbell. There were a lot of feathered head-dresses, embroidered tribal blankets and most bizarre of all, Tudor court frock-coats which looked like they’d been borrowed from the BBC costume department.

The show gets hammered by the press. The front row Dior clients with gleaming gold jewellery and bouffant hairdos hated it. A bright, embroidered blanket is hardly the thing for a society wedding or celebrity ball. But for me every moment was spellbinding. I loved the thrill of seeing these mad–amazing
clothes swish past my feet, the deliriously imaginative setting which made it seem like high theatre rather than a fashion show. I adored the champagne, the extravagance.

I loved it for all the reasons I expected to hate haute couture.

As the five-day season unfolds, I fall increasingly under the spell. I am a poor critic—too wide-eyed, too easily impressed. But at least when it comes to writing my summary I can recall the outfits. There is none of the confusing sameness of ready-to-wear: each show is dramatically different. I marvel at Valentino’s gypsy blouses covered in airy cobwebs of embroidery. Jean-Paul Gaultier’s liquid gowns which pour over perfect bodies. At the Chanel show, ethereal plumes flutter like snowflakes. And although those YSL blouses with floppy bows leave me cold, there is no denying the exquisite cut of the famous trouser suits. Some of the outfits represent hundreds of hours work—feathers have been hand-dyed, a corset hand stitched with thousands of tiny sequins. The urge to touch is overwhelming. This is not fashion. This is fairyland. Inspiring. Moving. Magical.

Of all the shows, the one that intrigues—no baffles—me most is Christian Lacroix. From the very first outfit, it’s an explosion of colour. Tangerine is teamed with turquoise, a lime corset trimmed with mauve fox fur. A knitted mohair dress is a sunburst of red and fuchsia and electric orange. Although some of the outfits look contemporary, the puffy ball gowns and sweeping skirts seem straight out of a more romantic epoch. Everything is embellished, embroidered, adorned. These are clothes for women who like to make an entrance. There is too much trailing taffeta for my liking, too much clanging colour.

But when Christian Lacroix finally steps onto the runway to
take his bow, the crowd leaps to its feet in a chorus of ‘
Bravo!
’. Red and pink carnations—the flower is symbolic of the designer’s native Provence—explode like fireworks in the air. The French spectators seem particularly enraptured. As the crowd spills into the foyer of the Grand Hôtel, the venue for the show, I overhear two male members of the pushy photographers’ pack enthusing. ‘
Sublime
,’ says one and his friend nods in agreement. ‘
C’est un poète
.’

I would have liked to have asked why: what is it about the clothes we’ve just seen that makes Lacroix a poet? But they are racing to the next show to fight for places in the crowded photographers’ pen and I don’t get a chance.

Walking home afterwards, I can’t help feeling that I missed something. The rave reviews of the show in the French press the next day only confirm it. Why are they so hot and me so lukewarm? What did they see that I didn’t? Determined to find answers for these questions, I decide to try to meet the man who created the clothes. A profile on the designer would provide the perfect excuse. A few weeks later after getting the okay from a magazine, I fax him requesting an interview. I’m not certain he’ll agree—big-name fashion designers are inundated with media requests and some loathe giving interviews. On the other hand, on the international scene, Lacroix is no longer considered ‘hot’ so he might be eager for publicity. Within a few days—in other words, remarkably promptly—one of his public relations staff calls to fix a day and time.

From the outside, the Lacroix headquarters on Rue du Faubourg St-Honoré has a stately dignity. The lovely seventeenth-century
hôtel particulier
wraps around a cobbled courtyard. But stepping inside, you instinctively reach for your sunglasses. The house of Lacroix is bursting with
tropical pinks, oranges and yellows. Vermilion carpets run into terracotta walls with a painted skirting of black shapes that resemble leaping flames. The place looks as though it could combust, such is the intensity of colour. The effect is stunning, exuberant and, like his frocks, simply too much for some tastes.

Someone from the PR office takes me to the couture studio upstairs, setting the table with a bottle of water and two mugs, in yellow and blue crystal which were designed by Lacroix for Christofle. He breezes in a few minutes later, shaking hands. His face is open and friendly, with large features that convey a certain sensitivity, so that it’s no surprise later when he says he’s an anxious person who needs friends that make him laugh. Although he often dresses like a dandy in snappy suits with silk scarves, on this day his look is low-key: baggy Ralph Lauren trousers he says he has owned for at least twenty years and a lime sweater.