If Armani is a suit and Max Mara a coat, then Chloé is a blouse.
Chloé creative director Chemena Kamali could mount an exhibition tracing the evolution of fashion via blouses since her personal collection of them bulges to nearly 1,500 styles, and her personal conviction is that sleeve volumes, level of padding and yoke placements evolve with societal changes.
For fall, the Chloé girl’s ivory or peach silk blouses come with broad don’t-mess-with-me shoulders, commanding sleeves, gathers galore and meaty cuffs, giving them the oomph of jackets.
Along with some delicate lace dresses with frothy peplums pivoting at the hip, they were the highlights of the collection, paraded on a vast, pale green carpet set between plywood seating.
The designer seems to be weaning herself, slightly, off direct references to the archive. During a preview, she did not mention her fashion hero Karl Lagerfeld, though her moodboard was clogged with Guy Bourdin images from the late ‘70s and much of the German designer’s brand-defining handiwork.
Kamali conveyed the historic feeling of some of the clothes — an emerging story of the Paris season — in an offhand way, tossing vaguely Victorian heirloom jackets over plunging henley knits and long, narrow chiffon skirts.
Demonstrative quilted coats with tubular fur trim were also in tune with an ‘80s mood gathering steam in the French capital.
“I was thinking a lot about how we romanticize the past, but through an intuitive lens,” Kamali said. “Sometimes you keep, sometimes you don’t keep, but the wardrobe is like a natural evolution of our lives.”
In addition, the designer said she sought to show “complexities, opposites and the different sides of the woman.”
To be sure, every exit pulsed with Chloé DNA, but many felt overcharged with too many dangling gold chains, logo belts, fur pompoms and assorted talismans. Charm-laden handbags — including the relaunched Paddington — were often carried in multiples.
Kamali has already proven she is at one with the brand spirit. It would be great to see her inject more of her personal imprint and dial down the retro quotient. The blouse category — she only showed a handful of them on Thursday, all terrific — could be a great place to start.
