Celine
PARIS, March 7, 2003
By
Wondering where the wild things are? The answer, at least this season, is on the runway at Celine.Michael Kors showed sequined zebra-striped bustier dresses, giraffe spots on pony bags, silver crocodile miniskirts and jackets, mink boleros and dramatic over-the-ear bonnets in Saga fox fur. But if the prints and pelts were straight out of the wilderness, the collection was most definitely designed for the urban jungle. The silhouette was neat, slim and dangerously short, while the palette was almost entirely black and white, with plenty of Chrysler Building-at-sunset sparkle. The clothes had a tough big-city-after-dark edge, with sharp silver zippers snaking their way up the back of second-skin pants, chains hanging from otherwise ladylike structured handbags, and white leather coats shot through with grommets.
Has the Celine woman morphed into Debbie Harry circa 1981? Most definitely not. This was punk done for girls with clean hair and Birkin bags—the same sort of women who will appreciate Kors’s swingy Breakfast at Tiffany’s satin trench coats and ice-blue fox puffer jackets.
The uptown/downtown clash could be seen most clearly in the shoes: sky-high square-toe stilettos with oversize silver Pilgrim buckles, which Kors described as “ladylike from the front and nasty from the back.” “It’s all about contradiction,” he said of the collection. “It’s a good girl gone bad or a bad girl gone good. I’m still trying to figure out which.”
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