Lanvin Spring 2011 Collection

Gladiator Wilmas.

When you want gorgeous colors and beautiful draping, you go to Lanvin first. This collection starts off by giving you what you want before giving you something you weren't expecting. Early on in the show, we see the Lanvin fingerprints everywhere; beautiful dresses with flowy details, one shoulder necklines, an all-around urban sophistication. Then the weird bits start popping up; unusually strong shoulders, heavy armor-like dresses, sleeves that give the wearer huge upper arms. We've gone from urban sophistication to urban warrior in less than ten minutes. If there's a story here, we'd have a hard time teasing it out, and yet it feels like something is being said here. Seemingly every other big name designer went with color this year and while there are pops of it here and there throughout the collection (that red and orange gown is GORGE), it is heavily weighted towards browns, greys, and blacks. No one should be beholden to what someone else (or anyone else) is doing, but the seriousness and weight of this collection does make it seem tonally "off" for the season.

We're not crazy about how bulky all the looks are near the end. There are some interesting ideas, like the "half-dresses" sewn together, but we're not convinced they make beautiful clothes. We don't mind a strong shoulder but some of these girls look like steroid abusers coming down that runway. As per usual, we love the shoes, but even they seem to be a season or 2 behind in their feel.

To sum it up, we like the parts that look like Lanvin and don't really like the parts that don't. We're all for designers and design houses branching out and getting away from the expected, but sometimes things are expected because no one else does them as well. We'll take flow-y, drapey Lanvin; we're a bit puzzled by gladiator Lanvin.

[Photo Credit: getty/wireimage - Video Credit: YouTube/kaiserfashion]

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Labels: Fashion, Lanvin, Paris Fashion Week, Spring 2011 Collections