Isabel Marant RTW Spring 2017
Certain things can be counted on during Paris Fashion Week. Traffic will be terrible. Chanel will take over the Grand Palais the second Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. and Isabel Marant will satisfy her loyal tribe by running her lineup through the theme machine — past examples include Las Vegas, Hawaii and Elvis Presley. So far this season, at least one of those things has proven to be delightfully untrue.
Marant made impactful changes, moving her show from Friday afternoon to Thursday evening and, even better, liberating herself from the confines of an on-the-nose inspiration. “I think it’s the first time I didn’t really have a theme,” she said backstage after the show. “I just followed my feelings.” Designing intuitively toward her idea of “casual femininity” yielded a fantastic collection, one of Marant’s best in a while, brimming with the unaffected French-girl attitude that came so naturally to her before the wedge-heel sneaker and H&M blockbusters put the brand on a faster track.
Marant used frills, florals, corsetry and workwear together to capture a real woman’s instinctive, everyday sense of femininity. She cut her signature silhouettes — high-wasted pants, flirty dresses and mannish jackets — with noticeably more breathing room and adult confidence. The label is inherently youthful, but the girlish, extreme minis and overt trends were minimized in favor of something more womanly. Crafty, dense wallpaper-ish floral prints came on an easy shirtdress and a ruffled, cropped bib shirt worn with pants with an ultrahigh, almost corseted waist. She drew attention to the waist throughout the collection, cinching a mannish denim jacket and pants with a white corset belt and cutting most pants with a high-narrow waist. The age-old tension of the masculine and feminine fueled much of the lineup, but it didn’t feel overly formulaic or forced. There was a softness to utility jumpsuits and denim and a sturdiness to the ruffled blouses with big sleeves. A red metallic ruched and knotted minidress reminded of Marant’s flashier moments, but in a sweet, small dose. The only downer was the traffic.
Launch Gallery: Isabel Marant RTW Spring 2017
Related stories
The Best Day Bags for Resort 2017
Montefiore Investment Acquires Isabel Marant
Isabel Marant, Mytheresa.com Throw Paris Bash
Get more from WWD: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Newsletter
