Ruth Burts Interiors: Paris 2012: Trends

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Paris 2012: Trends

COLOR-BLOCKING at Bottega Veneta

Trends are such a double - edged sword !
You want to know what's going on; what's the next, new thing. But, you don't want to get so caught up that you lose all sense of originality. That said, I'm just back from Paris, and here's what people are wearing...

RED at Prada

The biggest everywhere /over - and - over trend is the
all - black + 1 small shot of red (clothing or accessory).
It was everywhere.
One day I walked behind two women each wearing head-to-toe black, yet each carried a bright red bag.

RED at Hermès

It wasn't as simple as wearing an all-black outfit plus a red coat
....and head-to-toe black means opaque-black tights if you're wearing a skirt or dress. That said, one of the better ones of these I saw was all black plus bright orange-red hose/tights. The brighter-more-orangey the red the better.

FUCHSIA at Kenzo
That said, I saw the same trend on three people (within about one minute, one day, while waiting to cross the street near La Madeleine) where a tiny bit of fuchsia was worn in place of red.

What else was big ? Puffy jackets !

Every woman, man and child had one on. That might be okay, but it was also the case in 2010, there were just a ton more this time. You'd think Parisians would have come up with something newer and better in two years.

Quite a few did seem to have changed over to the traditional pea coats. These were almost always double-breasted, with gold buttons. Another big coat trend was toggle-closures on the front. Tons of those.

Boots -- tons of boots, as usual, but this time they were all sans-heel. Maybe 1" or less, but really no more than that. Other shoes -- lots of little oxfords. I'm really kicking myself now for not having picked up the ones I loved at Robert Clergerie. Additionally, Mary Janes are still big, as are tons of bows on shoes....tons!! And there are still a fair number of wedges and super-thick heels.

COLOR BLOCKING in the Marais

Even more confounding than the endless parade of puffy jackets (for lack of better description, we used to call them down vests from LL Bean; these have sleeves.) is the even longer-lasting trend of the pashmina-type scarf. This is another every-man-woman-child-type of trend. It seemed to have reached its peak a couple of years ago....but, nope, they're still everywhere!

NEUTRALS on NEUTRALS at Curling, rue Saint-Sulpice

When will the good old silk carré make a come back?! Sadly, no one under 60 (no agism here) seems to be wearing anything but the pashmina-type of scarf, and the gauzier the better! That "BOBO/bourgeois-bohemian" trend is pretty die-hard! Garance Doré was recently photographed in a pale gray silk one of these; she also appears to love her Robert Clergerie -glitter- shoes. Garance is France's go-to girl-of-the-moment, famous in particular for working alongside Sartorialist-founder, Scott Schuman.

GRAY on GRAY at at Le Prince du Sud, Ave Daumesnil

As mentioned in a previous post (Factory Chic with Shades of Napoleon III) the almost - colorless palette is still holding its own... that is, in its parallel life with hot - neon brights! This was everywhere -- in both clothing and design...tons of gray...absolutely tons....