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“Young, free and sexy”, Terry Jones concluded, then corrected, “actually sensual rather than sexy”, after the Balenciaga show. Making the waist the star, Nicolas Ghesquière put the midriff out there in thick strap white crop tops with cut outs either side and a dip at the cleavage, creating a beautiful shape across the neckline that curved and peaked, cut so clean it looked like two jigsaw puzzle pieces fitting together. The shape continued onto decadent ruffled dresses in contrasting colours, beginning black with white ruffles, concealing and revealing as the models walked; then black with beige, then black with pink, all fleshy and fluid. The ruffle came from a 1968 dress by Cristobal, reinvented here by Ghesquière on lopsided dresses and flamenco skirts that spiralled open at the front like a wave, or more considered than that: a painting of a wave. Fast becoming a trend of the season, the crop top was a staple throughout, crop-ping up under beige and grey trouser suits, holding its own with high-waisted trousers or made boxy with square shaped tunics that left a line of flesh at the small of the waist for the eye to ponder. Sensual was right; there wasn’t quite enough skin to be sexy, it was still subtle; an inch here, a cut out there, a slit down a skirt. He gave just enough away. And then the tide changed with a string of proper-but-not-prim tweed suits, exposing six inches of waist at the point where the jacket just failed to meet the skirt. Last came kaleidoscopic printed tops, coolly mis-matched with feather patterned skirts in contrasting colours, a combination that would suit the brand’s new face Kristen Stewart (present and ever-shy) perfectly. Suffice to say, it was one of those collections where you hardly noticed the models, obsessed instead by that tiny portion of waist on show and the incredible way Nicolas Ghesquière cuts clothes.
Text: Sarah Raphael
Photography: Mitchell Sams
See all of our SS13 womenswear coverage here.
