Someone's press team just earned their New Year's bonus. The turnout for Franck Boclet's debut show as menswear director for Emanuel Ungaro included both Clovis Cornillac (the French Russell Crowe) and M. Pokora (the French J.T.), which was enough to drive the local paps into overdrive. Such a shame that the stars weren't treated to a wardrobe-changing revelation.
In a presentation that might best be described as Gaultier-lite, Boclet, late of Francesco Smalto, offered up a raffish array of gypsy rovers (the music was actually the soundtrack of Time of the Gypsies) in neat little jackets and baggy, pleated trousers, or, by way of contrast, cutaway ensembles that were toreador-tight. Echoes of Gaultier's homme fatal were evident in the models' dark-rimmed eyes and their cosmetic goatees. (This latter touch was slightly misjudged when it appeared as a fake beard stuck on young Frenchman Vincent Lacrocq's chin.) Such obvious artifice was the flaw at the heart of the entire collection, as evident in the multi-buckled waistband on a pair of trousers, and in rope-tied pinstripe pants paired with a poet shirt. And it seemed a trifle optimistic to be promoting an astrakhan carryall, among other accessory items, when Ungaro's menswear has yet to ring a guy's bell.
