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Givenchy

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PARIS, January 21, 2011
By Tim Blanks
Riccardo Tisci had to contend with the bubbling frustration that a 90-minute wait can engender (there was scant hair and makeup to account for the show's delay, but there was, mind you, a rather ill-timed blackout). So? Against a version of "Forever Young" that slowed the beats to a sludgy thud, the proportions of Tisci's clothes—shorts with everything—celebrated the sporty ballers who turned him on to menswear in the first place. That was sweet, except that he also introduced a print of snarling Rottweilers, an aggressive extension of the inveterate Gothicism that saw his models step out under an arch of blood-red roses.

The dogs, with their whiff of nostalgie de la council estate, were typical of Tisci's challenge to polite convention. The impulse to provoke is as strong in him as the inclination to reassure his audience that he is a designer who is entirely capable of shaping perfectly tasteful items of clothing, in camel suiting even. He pushes you away, he pulls you back.

Break that tense dynamic down in Tisci's new collection, and there was a whole lot to like, particularly in his precisely layered tailoring. And what the hell, if you've got the legs, you might as well show them in Givenchy shorts.

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