Anne Valérie Hash's early work was predominantly focused on the idea of the masculine tailored silhouette on the feminine body. Her palette was predominantly black and white. In many ways, Hash has covered the main themes of this season many, many times before. So it was interesting to see her personal offering for Spring.
Did she reprise her earlier work? Not really—and in a sense, what a shame, because she could have shown quite a hefty proportion of designers this season how it's done. Then again, maybe she had anticipated this mood in her last Le Smoking collection and so merely had to move on. Instead, she mined some of the other preoccupations of this present time: flesh tones, transparency, and the iridescent.
In a collection entitled Electric Nude, the masculine was nowhere to be found. Layers of organza, chiffon, and tulle exaggerated the notion of the feminine in the looks, where underwear could be glimpsed through the limpid iridescent fabrics, and trousers featured transparent panels inset on the side of the leg, stretching from top to bottom. There was also a vibrant, iridescent print that owed something to the idea of the insect or the aquatic. All of these things had their charms.
Yet the silhouettes of these clothes felt decidedly like you had seen them before; that certain slouchy French style that seems stuck around the early period of Nicolas Ghesquière's output. It's a pity, because Anne Valérie Hash had once experimented with silhouette in such a deft way, for instance making a collection based on menswear on a little girl—a pattern-cutting feat if ever there was one. Hopefully she will eschew this default French-cool take on the silhouette next season. She's capable of more.
