A model for Vivienne Westwood
© AFP Pierre Verdy PARIS (AFP) - At the core of her collection were children's paintings. She was so impressed by some photos sent to her of work done by seven and eight-year-olds at a school in Nottingham she invited the class to collaborate with her.
Westwood's brief to the kids was to imagine soldiers who had been fighting in the jungle and when the war was over, they had so fallen in love with nature that they did not want to go back to the city.
Hence Westwood's eco-warriors still wore their tattered army uniforms, camouflage gear and peaked caps, but customised with primitively hand-painted butterflies, snakes and magic flowers, and fake fur pelts slung round their shoulders. Urban pin stripes, tartans and taffeta were jumbled in.
Her opening number, and finale, were worn by a model on stilts, towering above the runway.
Models' faces were daubed with red and yellow make-up, their hair in pigtails tied under their chins or trailing to the ground, and legs encased in thick knee-high socks and teetering heels.
A model for Vivienne Westwood
© AFP Pierre VerdyWestwood called her collection "Chaos point" and that was a shared sentiment at the end of the show, both applauded and booed.
The self-styled Queen of Punk rose to fame in the 1970s and that is an era that some designers seem determined to revive.
Gaspard Yurkievich dedicated his show to American journalist Alicia Drake's book on the 1970s beautiful people in Paris, "The beautiful fall."
It was full of shift dresses rustled up out of printed silk scarves, black satin blouses and fetish fluorescent yellow zips everywhere, round the neckline, waist, half open at the elbow and on pointy pockets of skinny pants.
Robert Normand's collection also harked back to the 70s, with his use of updated Art Deco prints and clingy silk and satin jersey dresses, some with striped bolero tops in sludgy moss green and slate grey.
A male-tailored grey flannel jacket gave a harder edge to a long evening frock in burnt orange spangled with big gold sequins, while a day-glo pink broderie anglaise frock was eye-popping.
Flashes of emerald silk lining, giant silver disks trimming jackets and clunky shoes, all contributed to the funky feel.
©AFP