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With her lips painted black and curves draped in dark silk, the femme fatale was back on the Paris catwalks. Susannah Frankel was bewitched
Last week in Milan, when Miuccia Prada said that the femme fatale was making a triumphant return to the fashion arena, they turned out to be prophetic words indeed. Small wonder: this is a designer with the sharply honed instincts of a tiger in pursuit of its prey where predicting the way forward for fashion is concerned, both her own and that of her contemporaries.
And so there she was, in all her glory, at Yohji Yamamoto, where the silhouette was as unashamedly romantic and dark as ever, cut this time in raw-edged leather and diaphanous organza. This is among the most poetic designers working in fashion today, and his offering for autumn/winter was as accomplished a display of technical precision and perfection of proportion as might be expected. Even loosely woven tweed - the way to wear the weave for the forthcoming season was thus established, early on in the week - was wrapped in a sheer veil of silk, softening the silhouette, although there was never any question of this dignified creature dressing to impress anyone other than herself.
Martin Margiela's woman this season rampaged the ramparts in skintight catsuits and jersey dresses cut on the diagonal to expose slender limbs. While Margiela has come up with some of the most considered, and indeed considerate, clothing of the past 20 years, this was not his most empathetic collection. Neither did it boast the complexity that the world has come to expect of him. A conventional runway presentation and clothes that, while lovely in places, in others veered perilously close to outright theatrics, did not make for as strong a showing as is usual.
Junya Watanabe was, conversely, on fine form. Here were sublime draped dresses - voluminous on the top, fitted on the bottom, bringing to mind the aesthetic of Bodymap in the 1980s. Then came tailoring that whispered of the belle epoque - Edwardian walking...