Riccardo Tisci was giving quotes backstage. "It was Schiaparelli, animal sensuality, the forties, the thirties," he began, and then pulled himself up with a more cogent submission: "Actually, I wanted to show lots of different shapes for all kinds of women." That last comment made sense. What had transpired on the Givenchy runway in the preceding 20 minutes was, at least in part, a corrective response to the criticism of his last "Western Bondage" collection, which was deemed to be only wearable by the super-skinniest of the fashion brave. In this collection, there were ample representations of Tisci's breadth of appeal: suits, coats, tailored dresses, well-cut pants. Yet there were many other parts as well—fierce, chic one-sleeved spiral-cut dresses with fur implants in the shoulder pads; feathers and goat hair embroidered onto tulle; signature Tisci-esque moments of fetish-y leather and goth mermaid; studs on white leather…and so it went on.
If the sheer variety of it all militated against any impression of wholeness, some of the parts were often very good indeed. A passage of palest lemon-beige yielded three interesting short lace dresses with blue glitter shoulder pads peeking through, bookended by two immensely chic pantsuits with matching ostrich boas. Lily Donaldson got to trot around in an enviably modern white asymmetric evening T-shirt, looped about with ropes and feathers, over slouchy black pants. And then, not quite ultimately, came three white fantasy goddess dresses, fabulously draped with glamorous demi-stoles of 3-D plissé fans and ostrich nestled into the neck and shoulder. Their beauty and modernity demonstrated beyond doubt that Tisci has taken much from his experience with Givenchy's couture. Yet perhaps things have now reached the stage where the guy doesn't need to keep trying so hard to prove himself: We believe him. It would actually have shown more self-confidence if he'd whittled his catalog of accomplishments down by a third.
