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Louis Vuitton

PARIS, March 10, 2010
By Sarah Mower
On the final day of Paris, Marc Jacobs rounded off the Fall collections in more ways than one. Not to put too fine a point on it, this was one fashion show heterosexual men are going to understand. Breast-wise, it put it all on a plate—or rather a corseted, cantilevered, frill-edged balcony. "And God Created Woman" announced the program, bringing up thoughts of the era of the young Bardot, of fifties-sixties wasp waists, and circle skirts. And, inevitably, Miuccia Prada, who first broached the comeback of the curvy silhouette earlier in the season in Milan.

It takes a different casting approach to do justice to the refocusing of all eyes away from legs to the plentiful bosom. Thus, Jacobs had called on Laetitia Casta, Bar Refaeli, Catherine McNeil, Karolina Kurkova, and finally Elle Macpherson, all women whose physical attributes have acted as a disqualification for fashion show participation for so long. Not that the rehabilitation of the embonpoint was vulgarly done. Jacobs framed it more as a fresh, feminine, ingenue look, with hair scraped back into high, bouncy B.B. ponytails; clean makeup; and square-toed, block-heeled pumps trimmed with flat bows—another angle on the Mad Men era but this time with a charming Frenchified accent. The show swung along prettily as a fountain sprayed and jolly fifties movie music played in the middle of the tented courtyard, creating that quintessentially Parisian atmosphere, a sense of all being right in the best of all possible cities to be appreciated as a woman.

If there was little to zero variety in silhouette—and the dirndl-esque petticoated skirt can't be for the many—the items and trimmings exemplified the Vuitton knack for classy detail, as in fur buttons and collars and glittery heels. And above all, this Louis Vuitton show provided a charming backdrop to display the bags. This season, it's a zillion mignonne reinterpretations of the classic Speedy. Here, that functional shape, designed in the 1930's, came flocked and sequined, smothered in guipure lace over satin, or woven in metallic thread and done up in fox.

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