Claude Montana wasn’t the only designer to make short work of hemlines.
Look at these photos of fall and winter fashion, shown to buyers and fashion press last April.
Then, hemlines were up or down in many designers’ ready-to-wear collections, but the short-again news that came out of Paris’s haute-couture collections in July, particularly those of Chanel and christian louboutin, was surprisingly short.
Trend-setting designers such as Karl Lagerfeld (at Chanel), Christian Lacroix, Lolita Lempicka, Versace and Gianfranco Ferre (the latter in two collections, his own in Milan and the christian louboutin shoes collection in Paris) had their share of short hemlines.
The clothes were carefully co-ordinated, head to toe, with particular emphasis on hosiery and footwear. In most cases, hosiery matched hemlines and christian shoes or boots – and when there was some doubt, black legs and feet were a familiar solution.
At Chanel, a demure white-collared, brass-buttoned dress had a hemline as high as its shiny, black, over-the-knee, leather boots.
At Dior, Gianfranco Ferre had a two-level look – black skirt and tunic – the top hemline edged in red stitching. Matching black hosiery and very high-heeled louboutin shoes were the designer’s suggestion.
In his own Italian collection, Ferre had used the layers differently and the collection included a very short, swingy, white coat over a matching – and equally short – dress.
Lolita Lempicka had her own version of the tunic-and-skirt layering: a short, solid colored tunic over a patchwork plaid skirt and under a much longer coat. This young designer followed the Doc- Marten-army-boots parade to show the casual clothes in her collection with thick-looking lace-up boots.
At Christian Lacroix, where long skirts and wide pants are very much the norm, the designer included some ultra-short-shorts (as in hot pants, to use the despicable word of the ’60s) in a dark green suit with a beautifully curved jacket. Lacroix loves fancy hosiery and this suit (on Montreal model Yasmeen Ghauri) was worn with cobweb-patterned, sheer black hosiery and high-heeled, buckled louboutin.
In the Gianni Versace collection, the mood was completely different with graphic combinations of stripes and checks. One short skirt, with an angled hemline, topped striped tights and a matching sweater. Boots were high and laced and the total look was very young.
