Andrew Gn pays homage to Cubists at Paris fashion

Models present creations by Andrew GN Andrew Gn on Sunday paid tribute to his favourite artists and designers including Cubists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in an art-inspired collection held fittingly at Paris's Palais des Beaux-Arts. Singapore-born Gn also named Italian architects and designers Gio Ponti and Carlo Mollino as influences on his spring/summer 2014 collection.
"I took it on myself to transport the energy of their visual language to clothes -- just as one can assemble furniture and art works to create a unique interior world," he said.
Sleeveless belted sheath dresses were overlaid with black python lace and trimmed with black ribbon while silk shorts in mint green or black were teamed with tops with Braque-inspired doves and stars applique.
Other elegant looks included tailored white dresses with black trim and an electric blue shift dress with a Cubist-inspired inset.
For evening, stand-out looks included a colour-blocked silk mousseline gown with yellow bodice, pearl grey skirt and black Mollino-inspired embroidery.
Others named as an influence on the collection by Gn included another Cubist, the French painter and sculptor Fernand Leger, and Scottish contemporary artist Peter Doig.
Chloe designer Clare Waight-Keller, meanwhile, put the accent on "seductive fluidity" with a collection full of flowing, long-line silhouettes.
"The shapes were about building volume without going into a cliched world of chiffon," the British designer told AFP backstage, adding that silks were made up of two layers making them "completely airy and billowy, almost parachute-like."
"It was a lot about lightness and transparency and movement" in order "to be sensual and modern but feminine," she added.
Elsewhere on Sunday, Kenzo creative directors Carol Lim and Humberto Leon used their show at director Luc Besson's vast Cinema City at Saint-Denis just north of Paris to highlight the issues of over-fishing of oceans.
Slogans such as "No Fish, No Nothing" and "85% of global fish stocks are depleted or exploited" were daubed on doors leading into the show.
"Hailing from California, we have always been impressed by the ocean, its power, its constant change, its ability to cultivate life and our reliance upon it," they said.
Their collection aimed to fuse "classic tailoring with beach living", they said, with cotton or laser-cut jackets featuring large open-backed "vents, to allow for a beech breeze."
Embroidered cropped tops resembled the crests of waves while prints included geometric and graphic aqua motifs.
Fish prints were an "observation on over-fishing in already crowded marine territories and are a key print for us to bring awareness to (the) conservation problem we all face," they said in a statement.
Nine days of women's ready-to-wear fashion for spring/summer 2014 are due to wrap up in Paris on Wednesday.
Source: AFP