Lucire   Lucire home page / Fashion / / Volante: travel features and news / Living / Lucire: Insider blog
News headlines / Lucire Reader Forum / Subscribe to the print editions of Lucire
Shopping 
Lucire Community 
 
 
Lucire feedback 
Subscribe to the Lucire Insider feed
Subscribe to Lucire
 

fashion: feature

Samedis à la mode Samedis à la mode


Max Chaoul


Emanuel Ungaro

continued

   The original motive was the commercial one of encouraging more people into the hotel during the weekends, when guest numbers tended to be low. After all, just as a designer needs to sell his creations in order to survive in the market-place, so a hotelier needs to maintain a solid client base to be able to provide consistently excellent service. C’est logique.
   But what has evolved over the seven-year history of these samedis de la mode, is an event that is a triumph of liberté, égalité, fraternité. The hotel’s management have created an event that is accessible to all, and not exclusively to its guests, nor even to those members of the public with the kind of bank balance that might make purchase of such gowns conceivable. From start to finish, the shows are administered in a democratic and friendly manner, as guests are shown to armchairs grouped around a series of small tables, carefully scattered throughout the lounge. As orders are taken for tea (the Bristol has 15 original varieties) or coffee, it is clear that all staff involved are proud of the shows and delighted to share their pride and pleasure, before and after the event, with a wider public. Management, then, is astute, large-minded, and determined to please.
   The designer’s brief is also generous, and aimed at giving pleasure. Alongside the opportunity to showcase one’s work and build up a client base, or, in the case of established couturiers, to provide something special for a faithful following, designers can use the unique space of the hotel with as much creativity as they choose. They may invite or exclude the press; they may directly advertise their business premises or merely arouse the interest of prospective clients. (At the first show I attended in 2002 by Salvatore Ferragamo, a representative went around the assembled guests with gift bags and directions to the nearest fashion stores.) Designers can choose their own models, but are encouraged to choose mannequins who are unafraid of proximity to the public, who are relaxed enough to smile, and, even, for preference, who are not anorexically thin. This brings a refreshingly down-to-earth dimension to an otherwise sophisticated event, as designers and their models linger after the show and are amenable to friendly conversation and inquiry. They speak in full sentences, smile, and, in the case of the accomplished Alexander Docquin, the designer at the last show I attended, they may have family with them (Alexandre had his young daughter with him and both looked happy and relaxed). An A-grade business card, camera, or full wallet are not required passports to conversation. Equally, designers are not necessarily French. On the calendar for February, Rosa Kanno fuses ‘the joy and warmth of Brazil with the tradition and serenity of Japan’ in her collection. And on January 24, 2009, Stella Art International chose the Hotel Bristol to organize a fashion show around the theme of Seasons of Russia to be presented by children from Moskva and Kyrgyzstan. With music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodine and Stravinsky, this show pushed the fashion catwalk envelope even further, by encouraging a spirited enjoyment of other countries beyond the more abstract cultural referencing of mainstream couture.
   Of the role of the third party in this tripartite relation between management, designer, and the public there remains only this to say. Relieved of all pressure at the fashion high teas, or samedis de la mode (literally, fashion Saturdays) the public feels something they may not necessarily feel during fashion week: namely, that they are welcome, that they are, literally, inside the same space as the performers and neither elevated nor degraded in relation to the level of the performance, and, finally, that no expectation is placed on them but to enjoy themselves.
   Lastly, the ubiquitous coffee culture in which many of us live, move, and have our being, finally has a serious—and seductively attractive—rival. Tea, anyone?

 

Dr Keren Chiaroni is a guest correspondent for Lucire.

 

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg it | Add to Facebook

Designers can choose their own models, but are encouraged to choose mannequins who are unafraid of proximity to the public, who are relaxed enough to smile, and, even, for preference, who are not anorexically thin. This brings a refreshingly down-to-earth dimension to an otherwise sophisticated event



Max Chaoul



Notes
Details about the Thés à la mode at the Bristol can be found on the hotel’s website, www.lebristolparis.com.
   The cost of an afternoon tea, which equates also to the entrance ticket, is  55, payable at the bar on arrival.
   Reservations can be made (from within Paris) at 33 1 53-43-43-42.
   Once you know the dates of your stay in Paris, check out the calendar of events in advance so as not to miss out on a favourite designer.

 

Related articles
Lucire 2005 | The Global Fashion Magazine

John Pearse, for a lifetime
Stanley Moss finds the ideal fabric—but it’s up to John Pearse of London to shape it into a bespoke jacket

Lucire 2005 | The Global Fashion Magazine New Zealand’s first fashionista
Jack Yan says Katherine Mansfield was New Zealand’s first fashionista, as a tribute to her takes place in Wellington
Expanded from issue 26 of Lucire