Paris Fashion's Comeback Kid
After a year-long exile from the Paris catwalks, designer Olivier Theyskens is back—with a little help from friends like Reese Witherspoon.
Theyskens has been absent from the Paris catwalks for a year, after his previous employer Rochas shut down its ready-to-wear division, leaving the critically acclaimed young designer without a job.
Fashion editors around the world bemoaned his loss, blaming it on a corporate focus on bottom-line costs over creativity.
Theyskens has drawn criticism in the past for focusing too heavily on stratospherically priced eveningwear, and duly peppered his Autumn/Winter 2007/2008 collection with practical alternatives for everyday dressing.
Even before his official debut, the 30-year-old scored a major coup by dressing Reese Witherspoon during the awards ceremony season, culminating with the widely praised purple gown she wore to the Oscars a week ago.
That dress, like the outfits shown on the catwalk, was inspired by the twisting lines of the bottle for Ricci's classic fragrance L'Air du Temps.
A gray angora sweater with diagonal ribs was paired with white skinny jeans and white boots, but things really took off with the ballgowns, which included a draped yellow bustier dress made from flower-patterned brocade.
"I wanted to show how you can make something look light and flying, almost like wings," the soft-spoken designer said.
Retailers' response to the pre-fall collection unveiled in January has been phenomenal, according to Mario Grauso, president of Spain's Puig Fashion Group, which owns the label. "The support from retailers has been huge. Everyone wants the collection," he said.
Ricci plans to open a shop-in-shop at Bergdorf Goodman in New York that will be a first - a concept store featuring furniture and wall coverings designed by Theyskens himself, Grauso said.
He said the label's offerings spanned from a $600 T-shirt to a $17,000 evening gown.