Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci commented on his collection “It was Schiaparelli, animal sensuality, the forties, the thirties. Actually, I wanted to show lots of different shapes for all kinds of women.” And he actually did what he wanted- we find everything in this collection: suits, coats, tailored dresses, well-cut pants. Yet there are many other parts as well—fierce, chic one-sleeved spiral-cut dresses with fur implants in the shoulder pads; feathers and goat hair embroidered onto tulle; signature Tisci’s moments of fetish: leather and goth mermaid; studs on white leather…and so on.
If the sheer variety of it all militated against any impression of wholeness, some of the parts were often very good indeed. A passage of palest lemon-beige yielded three interesting short lace dresses with blue glitter shoulder pads peeking through, bookended by two immensely chic pantsuits with matching ostrich boas. And then come the three white fantasy goddess dresses, fabulously draped with glamorous demi-stoles of 3-D plissé fans and ostrich nestled into the neck and shoulder. Their beauty and modernity demonstrated beyond doubt that Tisci has taken much from his experience with Givenchy’s couture. Yet perhaps things have now reached the stage where the guy doesn’t need to keep trying so hard to prove himself: We believe him.
