Designer Diary: Melt London
29-02-2008
Paris,
caressing an early springtime, is truly a beautiful and romantic city. It’s a
visual patisserie oozing with sensory overload. High on its endless wow factor London’s
Bond Street has attractions, but only offers the expected retail experience,
mixed with endless traffic wardens, and slow moving diesel spouting buses. But
the narrow Rue St. Honore sprinkles big name designers with tantalising
glimpses of the Louvre buildings, secret courtyards, fabulous tiny shops,
wafting bespoke perfumes, flimsy lingerie and a louche atmosphere of implied
boudoir pleasure.
Strolling
post-dinner window shopping is inevitably a warming liqueur which slips into
the promise of a ruinous future retail purchase. At all cost avoid Miu Miu’s
irresistible jewel red bag which glows like a tantalising work of art through
their window. Instead visit the Hotel Coste where the fashion pack overflow
spills down the entrance steps, and a small crowd lounges against the new, very
black and shiny frontage. Their cigarettes glowing amber in the night as
desperate smokers adjust to the recent ban while awaiting non-existent taxis.
Around
the corner at the museum of textiles, Christian Lacroix is honoured with a show
that mixes lovingly archived and historical garments with his amazingly theatrical
fantasies. Colour, texture, shape and fantasy all wildly intermingle across
generations and centuries, successfully creating a kaleidoscope of unexpected
and awe inspiring beauty.
Neither
Texworld nor Premier Vision can offer anything to match this splendour. Before
the touch and partnership of a talented designer, cloth however beautiful
remains nothing more than a length of fabric awaiting the magic. For those of
us exploring the conundrum of spring/summer 09 it seems that “soft” is the
current buzz-word. Or, as our P.R. at Huge would say, soft will be the future
“hero” product.
Melt London jacket
Having
exhausted ourselves absorbing the new in textiles, we said a temporary farewell
to the Eiffel Tower’s stardust twinkle, and will return this week to exhibit at
Paris Sur Mode. Anyone interested in taking a look at the Melt London
collection, please come and visit us in the Westin Hotel on the Rue Rivoli,
stand Imperial C4.
Paris
Sur Mode is on from Friday 29th February to Monday 3rd March – 10am to 7pm
By
Susan Royston
Creative
Director of Melt London
