Daily Front Row

2009 July 9

Runway Review

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Jean Paul Gaultier Couture Fall 2009
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(PARIS) If couture week needed a shot in the arm, it arrived in the form of Jean Paul Gaultier's 4th exit. His lean black trompe l'oeil suit offered couture at its best--full of vision, technique, longevity, sales (and sex!) appeal. It was the first in a series of swoon-worthy looks inspired by the drame and mystique of Old Hollywood. Tanya D. stormed the runway in a gown trimmed with film that appeared to unwind in her wake. And while there were plenty of pieces that fun--a nude padded Vegas costume, circa 1940--it was the less showstopping numbers that really stopped the show because of, well, the way they moved. A deceptively easy-feeling asymmetrical black dress turned Sasha Pivovarova into her own species of bird about to take flight. A trench coat unbuttoned suggestively and unfurled into an unabashedly sexy tail, while a tuxedo jacket that hung just past the point of indecency was gifted a billowing skirt. The disembodied voice of Gloria Swanson proclaimed throughout the room, "I am big. It's the pictures that got smaller." With clothes like these, they certainly did.