Paris Fashion Week is putting black basics back on the map

As recently as the haute couture shows in January we had a lifelike lion’s head at Schiaparelli but for ready-to-wear, creative director Daniel Rosebery played it straight, sending out a restrained wardrobe. Even the mouth on a little black dress embellished with a face was set firmly, rather than smiling. Perhaps it knew about the latest interest rate rise.

Black is hardly a surprising choice for Demna, creative director of Balenciaga but unlike last year’s energetic winter collection shown in a simulated snow dome, here the mood was restrained. The focus on oversized jackets and round-shouldered dresses in a plain white auditorium was one way of cleansing the scandal over recent controversial advertising campaigns. Drama was kept out of the room and the range.

By stripping back creativity for survival, Balenciaga captured the mood of the season, making room for new growth.

Australian designer Nicky Zimmermann felt the mood at her eponymous label’s second Paris show, planting Wednesday Addams dresses and black puffer jackets among the usual printed confections of flouncy dresses and skirts.

The prints borrowed from paintings by Rupert Bunny in the National Gallery of Victoria. “Bunny’s works have also influenced the mood of the collection more generally,” Zimmermann wrote in the show notes.

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“He was not a painter of timeless masterpieces, but a versatile professional, ever alert to the changing currents of art fashion,” arts writer John McDonald said about Bunny in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2009. In this collection, the changing currents could be felt most strongly in Zimmermann’s black pieces, chocolate leather jumpsuits and statement denim.

Like the title character of Bridget Jones’s Diary or Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, there’s always one character who goes against the tide with their wardrobe. Making his Paris debut at Nina Ricci, British designer Harris Reed sent out sheer green suiting, pink tulle wings and blue polka dot bodysuits.

There was an oversized black and white dress, with exaggerated proportions that might even have made Lagerfeld smile.

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