Pages

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Couture Shows in Paris


The Couture Shows in Paris
Karl Lagerfeld, Armani Privi, John Galliano and Christian Lacroix present their couture collections in Paris.















A Chanel as Big as the Ritz


FASHION designers excel at monument-building: witness the rise of towers in cities like Tokyo and Shanghai. These multistory shops sell clothes and sunglasses, but they also serve to remind people of the power of a brand in a noisy consumerist world.


Coco Chanel died before she had to worry about that. Besides, she left a real monument to modern dressing: the cardigan jacket. How many other designers have created a style that is a uniform as much as a symbol, its iconic value on par with the Coca-Cola bottle? It's relatively easy to build a tower of glass.


Undeniably, the 75-foot model of the Chanel jacket that Karl Lagerfeld erected in the Grand Palais for the spring haute couture show on Tuesday smacks of kitsch. It would be a huckster's dream dome. There are days when you think the world is almost at that point where you could picture such a monstrosity in place of the Arc de Triomphe or the pyramids in Egypt - and nobody would mind. Great! SHOP!


Mr. Lagerfeld's motives, if not entirely innocent, were simple. Although the jacket is probably the best-known object that Chanel created, after Chanel No. 5, she made many other styles and often dominated a decade with her influence.


So the idea was to use the jacket as the symbolic hub from which other styles emerged and inevitably returned to. The model, made of wood and painted to resemble concrete, sat on an revolving platform, and the models entered the runway through a flap in the jacket.


The clothes had wit, too. Seashells were the inspiration, Mr. Lagerfeld said the night before, in the Chanel studio. In the hands of another designer, this might sound banal, but as Mr. Lagerfeld opened a book on his desk called "Coquillages," featuring shells from the collection of Jacques and Rita Senders, it was amazing to see the variety of hues and textures: the spirals, ridges, folds, spurs and feathery edges.


All those natural shapes Mr. Lagerfeld represented in couture silks. There were black wool day jackets with a curving line shown with draped miniskirts, one shaped in spiraling circles. Some of the suits had blouses with Elizabethan collars, a style that Chanel liked in the 1930s. Among the prettiest evening looks was a strapless beige tunic with ridges of pleated tulle and chiffon that ended in a rounded hem. It was shown with sheer, embroidered French culottes.


The pinks were the pinks of shells. The tiny marabou feathers and silver beads embedded in a pleated chiffon and tulle dress with a crisscross back and flaring skirt were pure Paris.


High fashion at this level is largely impervious to economic recessions. That's because the demand for $100,000 beaded dresses equals the supply. Last year, Dior had its largest annual sales gain in couture in its 60-year history, said Catherine Rivière, the couture director, adding that the biggest spenders come from Russia and the Persian Gulf states. One client, she said, spent about $500,000 for several garments.


So far as couture educates people about beauty and specialized hand crafts, a greater threat to its existence is the loss of know-how. Tonight, Valentino retires.


That John Galliano creates his Dior collections from historical references like the scandal-making Sargent portrait of "Madame X" or the story of Salome tends to confound the literal-minded. They expect to see these references, and when they get instead a ballooning sack dress in livid fuchsia silk mobbed with sequins, a pair of peacock-blue feather eyelashes and a gold lampshade hat, they complain that it's visually confusing.


Much that is modern does precisely that, and some other sensory power is needed to understand it. The only thing that really impaired this subtle and dazzling show on Monday was the clunky footwear, which defied the inexperienced models to walk and throw a pose at the same time. None of the balance created by the volumes and rather strict lines would have been lost if he had ditched the platforms.


Two thoughts came to mind with these clothes. One was the new composition of the colors (often hand-painted on silk) and the embroideries, which were at once intense and abstract. The other thought was the relative simplicity of the shapes. As far as the body goes, they suggested control - and not. Pursuing that thought, it's not unimaginable that Mr. Galliano was in the middle of a conversation between Balenciaga and Dior.


At 7:30 p.m., on Monday, Giorgio Armani had his couture show - a Privé sign put on the steps of the Palais de Chaillot to notify onlookers, the velvet ropes set out for celebrity and paparazzi alike.


Mr. Armani is a master at creating a scene. Inside, 10 men in crow's-nests trained stage lights on the runway. Sophia Loren, dressed in a dark coat and trousers, sat in the front row. There was no need to smile because Sophia Loren had smiled so many times before. Mr. Armani's niece, Roberta, sat next to Hilary Swank, who had on a black beaded cocktail dress. Ms. Armani never seemed to stop smiling.


The burlesque star Dita Von Teese, who had changed from a Dior in the afternoon to an Armani, its portrait neckline now framing her bosom, sat very still, her hands folded on her lap, the picture of a lady in drag.
The models performed their roles, too. Not the top girls, they struck poses and occasionally found a spot in the middle distance to fix a hard, blank gaze. The first outfits were in a fine gray bias-cut pinstripe, the jackets or bodices cut close to the body and the full skirts turned in sharply at the hem, like the edge of a paper lantern. Another motif of the collection was horizontal pleating, sometimes with a ladder of black plastic pieces inset into a tight bodice.


There was nothing lurid or in bad taste about Mr. Armani's clothes, but neither was there anything subtle or particularly surprising about them. Ruffled organdy dresses in citrus and gray tones looked light and feminine, and some tops and dresses were scattered with overlapping disks.


Everything looked impeccable. But despite his incredible design range over the years, irony and self-reference are not within his imagination, so there will never be a jewel of a dress coming out from a huge beige hub of an Armani jacket. The great thing about watching a Lagerfeld couture show, and to an extent a Galliano, is that each dress and jacket is not only unique but also conveys with wit the history of the house. You get that much less with Mr. Armani.


By contrast, Christian Lacroix made every choice count. His show on Tuesday was sensational. From the first outfits, like a deep blue coat dress with whirls of black embroidery, he commanded your attention. This was a rare Lacroix show. For one thing, the shapes were light and contemporary. For another, the collage effects made sense.


Among the prettiest looks was a quartet of draped chiffon dresses in colors like ruby and emerald. A black embroidered jacket appeared over a white lace T-shirt and wide creamy trousers. And there were surprises everywhere, like an embroidered sheer-white apron tied to the front of a silk-print dress, and a short-sleeve jacket with hand-knitted gold and burnt-red arm warmers. The collection seemed to exalt the eccentric modern dresser.








Technorati : , , , ,

Healthy eating : keep your health balance




HAPPY HEALTHY LIFE

whatever your size?And it has shown that simply mastering a repertoire of quick, easy and great-tasting recipes is crucial if you want to eat well and feel great.


Here, the Channel 4 show's presenter Dr Christian Jessen shares five healthy recipes to help you stay in control of your weight...


Easy pea and ham risotto


Traditional risotto needs constant stirring for a good 20 minutes but you can take a shortcut by pre-cooking the rice and then mixing it with a sauce for almost the same creamy texture.


INGREDIENTS


150g risotto rice, such as arborio, carnaroli or vialone nano


600ml stock, made with a cube or bouillon powder


1/2tbs or one spritz olive oil


1 medium-sized onion, chopped


1 fat clove garlic, crushed


125g frozen peas, thawed


2 slices ham, cut into small pieces


3tbs freshly grated parmesan cheese


1 Cook the rice gently in the stock in a large pan for 15 minutes until the grains are just tender. Do not drain.


2 Meanwhile, heat a frying pan until hot, add the oil and saute the onion and garlic for five minutes, then mix in the peas and ham, and stir-fry for 2-3 more minutes.


3 Stir the peas and ham into the cooked risotto with half the cheese. Divide between two shallow bowls and serve sprinkled with the remaining cheese.


Turkey and pork burgers


Both turkey and pork mince are lean. Mix the two together for mouth-watering light burgers and serve with salad on wholemeal baps.


Layer with sliced mushrooms, tomato relish or mild French mustard, a slice of a large juicy tomato and some rocket or watercress. Freeze extra burgers for later meals.


Makes eight burgers.


INGREDIENTS


500g fresh turkey mince


500g fresh pork mince


1 fat clove garlic, crushed


1 small onion, grated


1tbs freshly grated ginger or ginger puree


Leaves stripped from 1 large thyme sprig


1tbs soy sauce


1 Put all the ingredients together in a bowl, season with freshly ground black pepper (no salt because of the soy) and mix together well with your hands.


2 With wet hands, shape into eight even-sized patties about 1cm thick. (Open-freeze six of the burgers, then bag and store for up to three months. Thaw well before cooking.)


3 Pre-heat a grill or griddle pan and cook the burgers for about five minutes each side. Don't overcook or they will become dry.


Spinach & potato frittata


Turn leftover cooked potato and a bag of spinach into a main-meal omelette. Serve at room temperature or cold, with a tomato salad. Meateaters might like to slip in slices of Parma ham.


INGREDIENTS


1 medium-sized, cold, cooked potato, about 250g


1 red onion, sliced


1tbs or 2 spritzes olive oil


200g bag baby leaf spinach


4 free range eggs, beaten


1 Peel and cut the potato into chunks then boil for 10 minutes until just tender. Drain. If using leftover potato, simply cut into chunks.


2 Heat a medium-sized non-stick frying pan, add the oil and saute the onion for five minutes until softened, then add the potato chunks and cook for another five minutes. Drop in the spinach and stir-fry in the pan until just wilted.


3 Pour in the beaten eggs and swirl in the pan to mix. Season and cook the eggs until they firm, shaking the pan once or twice. When set on top, loosen the sides of the omelette and slide on to a board. Cut into quarters and serve.


Hot bananas with orange and rum


If there are any bananas still in the fruit bowl at the end of the week, this is a great way to use them up and make space for more.


INGREDIENTS


2 ripe bananas


1 small orange or clementine, squeezed


2tsp rum or brandy


2tsp soft brown sugar, optional


2tsp single cream or reduced-fat creme fraiche, to serve (optional)


1 Cut the bananas into chunks and place in a small frying pan.


2 Squeeze over the orange juice and add the rum or brandy plus the brown sugar, if using.


3 Heat until the pan sizzles, then cook for five minutes over a medium heat, turning the bananas carefully to coat in the juices.


4 Divide between two dessert bowls and serve on their own or trickled with some single cream or reduced-fat creme fraiche.


Apple and pear crumble


Keep a jar of crumble in the fridge ready to sprinkle over fruit for quick puddings. Add nuts, oats and spices to make it your own special recipe and vary the fruits. It keeps in the fridge for three-four weeks. Natural yoghurt or reduced-fat creme fraiche is very good with this.


Serves two with crumble left over for six more servings.


INGREDIENTS


Crumble (enough for eight)


50g plain flour


50g wholemeal flour


40g reduced-fat spread or butter


25g porridge oats


1tbs demerara sugar


1/2 tsp mixed spice or cinnamon


1tbs desiccated coconut, optional


1 1/2tbs chopped roasted hazelnuts or pecans or walnuts, optional Fruit (enough for 2)


1 large dessert apple, cored and chopped


1 large pear, quartered, cored and chopped


A little pineapple or apple juice, for cooking


1 Whiz together the flours, spread or butter, oats, sugar and cinnamon.


Tip into a large jar and mix in the coconut and nuts if using. Store in the fridge until needed.


2 Stew the fruits in just enough juice to cover for about five minutes until softened. Heat the oven to 190C/Gas 5.


3 Tip the fruits into a small pie dish and sprinkle over 4tbs crumble (or 2tbs per person), then bake for 10-15 minutes until the topping is lightly browned and cooked. Cool and serve.


ENJOY!!!!!





Technorati : , , , , , ,

Michael Jackson marks comeback with remake





Michael Jackson will mark his comeback with a star-studded remake of hit album Thriller.


The singer stunned fans at a music awards in Cannes when he announced he has lined up a host of big names for the project.


Speaking for the first time about his return, Jacko, 49, said in a video message: "I'm coming back. And I've got a very special treat for all of my fans.


"I have been recording Thriller: 25th Anniversary, with a lot of surprise guests."


Insiders confirmed Jacko's European comeback at the O2 Arena in London will go ahead in summer.


The singer's work was honoured with a gong at the NRJ Music Awards in Cannes.


Thriller, released in 1982, is the biggest selling album ever.





Technorati : , , ,