What's in a Name: Bill Gaytten's Maison John Galliano

Diaphanous and romantic, Bill Gaytten's SS17 collection has his own imprimatur. Cover picture & photography by Elli Ioannou

Bill Gaytten's new collection for Maison John Galliano showed an engaging femininity and sense of romance. The designer has developed his own signature at the fashion house in the past five years, with a light and fluid aesthetic. Our Paris correspondent, Elli Ioannou, takes a look back at the highlights of the Spring/Summer 2017 ready-to-wear collection, shown earlier this month in the French capital

The show's runway at Lycee Carnot in Paris

WALKING into the rather dilapidated yet storybook Lyceé Carnot school in Paris’ 17th arrondissement, guests at the new John Galliano runway show were seated on high school wooden benches. The show's attendees were clearly still part of the original John Galliano club, wearing bold outfits captured by the photographers at the event along with the runway show. Bill Gaytten has emerged from the shadows of couturier John Galliano in the past five years and presented an appealing and low-key SS17 ready-to-wear range which should pique the interest of a new generation.

The collection's play on fluidity & transparency 

Originally trained as an architect, and working behind the scenes with Galliano for 23 years, Gaytten was pushed into the spotlight when he was made the creative director of the house after the designer's controversial dismissal in 2011. A rebranding of the label was officially launched with a change of logo and new campaign last year. The latest spring/summer 2017 collection reflects a classic design direction more in line with the brand's owner, the LMVH group, than the more over-the-top and avant-garde style of its former designer.



Pastel hues added to the sense of romance 

Young models, almost sprinted around the rectangular runway at the Lyceé Carnot wearing soft romantic hues, with looks inspired by the 1930s. The official theme of the collection was inspired by “dress-ups” viewed through a young girl’s naïve imagination when she discovers trunks of pre-loved clothes from another era. Dark, transparent dresses and boxy jackets were a counterpoint to the floaty, white long gowns. 


Milliner Stephen Jones' mask

Papier Mache animal masks were specially created by milliner Stephen Jones for the show. At first glance the looks offered an innocent-looking vision of youth with sheer silk chiffon, lace and tulle dresses. However on closer inspection, the details reveal the subtle but ingrained signature of John Galliano in their form: bias ruffled tiers and draped decolletes, black, open-waisted Thirties cut pants, with v-shaped cropped bolero jackets and signature blue and white sailor stripes in a bold vertical pattern.

Sheer and flowing dresses were mixed with mens’ jackets in upholstery stripes, further distressed and re-embroidered, while trousers were intentionally over sized and shaped by layers of vintage-look leather belts and Art Deco style costume jewellery.

Bold stripes added a strong contrast 

Transparent looks revealed undergarments that seemed more innocent than seductive. The romantic looks were juxtaposed with the post-punk Nineties soundtrack, including the finale echoing with Kurt Cobain's angst and sense of rebellious youth. The key accessory to be launched this collection was the Chain bag exclusive to Maison John Galliano SS17. Stiletto sandals with leaf detailing, completed the transformation from childlike daydream to a modern vision of femininity.

Tap on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Maison John Galliano's new accessory the Chain bag launched in Paris

Delicately gathered pink chiffon sleeves and fine darts on the bodice created a romantic summer dress

The white dresses had a sense of freedom and innocence contrasted by the transparency of the fabric

Leather belts added a note of robust detail to the flowing dresses 

One of the key trends in Paris for SS17 was underwear as outerwear and this was a strong theme in Bill Gaytten's collection

This diaphanous dress with its rows of undulating frills was a highlight of the collection

A Thirties style jacket in cream linen is tucked into broad, low-waisted trousers

Modern Grecian goddess in white chiffon

A glimmer of sparkle added a sense of evening drama to this sheer gown

Blue and black with unexpected contrasts of transparency and opaqueness made this a highlight of the show

The new Chain bag worn with pink and white underwear as outerwear

New Parisian warrior with feather and comfortable double-breasted jacket

Black lace transparency

 The new trouser designs added avant-garde element to the show

Stephen Jones' masks added a slightly surreal, story book quality to the collection

 Pattern and bold stripes made a jaunty counterpoint to the diaphanous white dresses

The models strode out in the finale in Paris 

One of the guests at the John Galliano show in Paris earlier this month 

An asymmetrical suit in blue and red check with a quirky hat made this guest part of the John Galliano ethos

Cyborgs and Chanel's New World Order in Paris

Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld with Lily-Rose Depp at his SS17 ready-to-wear show in Paris. Tap photographs for a slideshow of the collection.


Each season Karl Lagerfeld creates Chanel collections that seduce and polarise new generations of the jeunesse dorée. His latest work, shown in Paris earlier this month, for Spring/Summer 2017 was set in a digital world with two cyborgs opening the show, both a commentary on society's obsession with new technology, followed by a brilliant yet wearable collection that seemed both contemporary and retro with a dash of Eighties futurism, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

Cyborgs opened the show at the Chanel Data Center

KARL Lagerfeld, brings an acute mind and a fulsome creativity to his collections that make his shows sought after each season in Paris. Chanel’s creative director since 1983, Lagerfeld has always loved the latest technology, he looks to the future and doesn't like nostalgia yet has an expansive knowledge and passion for the history of design, architecture and fashion. As a designer, he likes to test the technical skills of the Chanel ateliers to their limits with new techniques and materials. Under the great, soaring glass roof of the Grand Palais with dappled sunlight filtering onto the catwalk, Karl Lagerfield created for his latest ready-to-wear show, what he called the Chanel Data Center: a white digital world with the flashing lights of computer servers alongside the runway and trolleys of red, yellow and blue cables.



The great, soaring roof of the Grand Palais  

A master of creating fashion spectacle, two be suited models in bouclé tweed wearing white robot helmets strode onto the runway to Patrick Cowley's electro remix of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love. Walking out to the disco beat, the models with rather charming robotic faces seemed inspired by the broad features of Coco Chanel. The two cyborgs introduced a surprisingly wearable show full of brilliant colour with classic tweed suits updated by vivid, neon hues and the romantic whimsy of lacy, pale pink wisps of lingerie.

"Even if you don't like the idea, technology rules the world because it changes the world and has made many things easier,'' said Lagerfeld before presenting his collection. "My idea is to show the most iconic jacket on a creature of an unknown future. It means that Chanel is timeless and as the French say immortel. The data centre is something of our time and suggests the idea of the modern woman whatever the time, the century or the circumstances are. It is something I felt, I like the idea and translated it. But it is not technology in a cold way, it is 'intimate technology' ~ armour for the outside world ~ and something much more refined for the private world." Lagerfeld's inspiration for the catwalk was a vision of a woman walking through kilometres of cables, metallic racks and computer cabinets, a mistress of the digital universe.

Chanel Home Girl: fluid and comfortable

The whole collection had a feeling of a free-wheeling, comfortable modernity that felt both contemporary, retro and futuristic at the same time. But Lagerfield's future aesthetic has a certain playful, Eighties whimsy (a thread that ran through other SS17 shows in Paris including Anthony Vaccarello's debut at YSL) than a hard-edged, nihilistic vision of tomorrow. "Without the human hand, without delicacy and savoir-faire, nothing would be possible,'' says Lagerfield. "After all, don’t two robots wearing Chanel suits prove, perhaps, that more than any technological breakthrough, it is femininity that truly transcends time?" The designer believes that in an ultra-technological world our daily life is increasingly 'dematerialised', he wants to put humans back at the centre of everything, making what he calls Intimate Technology the theme of his new collection.

One of Chanel's new bags with flashing LEDs 

The designer played with digital motifs creating a beaded top embroidered like a motherboard, graphic prints that looked like vivid screen savers and hand bags flashing inside with the interlocking CC logo created by LED lights. There was a jaunty 1980s home girl vibe with side ponytails and sideways baseball caps perched with the peak to the left: "Today, caps are what people wear the most and so I had to make a Chanel version of that and wear it in a different way on the side, in a way it looks really like a refined hat," Lagerfield explains. Monochrome tweeds were combined with neon hues and worn with large retro Eighties gold earrings and long pendant chains embellished with camellias and held on with a snap hook. The Chanel jackets were more fluid and less form-fitting and the checks a little bigger than usual. The collection's shoes were mostly flat or with a low heel with broad cross over straps.


Francis Bean Cobain at the Chanel show

Lagerfield not only enjoys the latest technology but loves featuring the jeunesse dorée in his campaigns for Chanel. This season, his front row included the Chanel's ambassadors, the beguiling Lily-Rose Depp, Anna Mouglalis, Gaspard Ulliel and Caroline de Maigret alongside American singers Usher and Young Thug. Plus French actress Alma Jodorowsky, Chinese actresses Bai Bai He and Sandra Ma and the young Japanese Nana Komatsu. Chanel's connection with the young and the future was put into material form with new details and new fabrics in the SS17 collection. For example, touch fasteners replace buttons, braiding becomes a thick jersey cable, woven multi-coloured tweeds include rubber strands and vinyl strips, cotton, denim and wool threads line up like electronic cables, collars and cuffs are swathed in embossed translucent gauze.



Brilliant colour as a counterpoint to pastels

There are bursts of colour with backgrounds of blue, red, yellow, pink, purple, black and navy and a mix of pastels and electric shades. The home-girl caps are in silk or tweed while the sleek clutch bags are made of perforated silver leather. The unlined jackets and big coats are made to be as light as knitwear and are worn over long skirts and pleated blouses. Thrown over the negligees are tweed jackets with rounded shoulders, long sleeves and wide lapels and even a pair of culottes zipped at the front and back. Blouses combine sequins that look like electronic components and evening gowns had voluminous sunray pleats, trimmed with marabout. Asymmetrical jackets are worn with zip-up skirts with flat pleats that reveal silk and lace shorts beneath. Like a long necklace, the new Gabrielle bag has double straps slipped on around the head like a sweater, and bordering the neck and shoulders. Cotton voile is used for coats and dresses, with ruffled edged camellias, a full skirt is embellished with an entirely pleated camellia.


Long silk dresses added a feminine touch

The technology and motifs inspired by the digital world in the show were made softer by blouses with ruffled cuffs and long silk dresses. Silk, lace and crepe georgette were in subtle hues of powder, pale pink, candy pink, blush and peach with a contrast of midnight blue. "The idea behind that is a fluid femininity. It is not sexy lingerie, it is not agressive, it is flesh coloured and there is something poetic about this colour," Lagerfeld says. Under slips and negligees were tailored with flat or accordion pleats and shell guipure lace petticoats and pyjama trousers in silk and lace were worn as daywear. For this collection, the couturier created the delicate lingerie ~ underwear as outerwear ~ as a counterpoint to the reality of a harsher, more automated, contemporary world.

See below video for more photographs of the Chanel collection and new accessories

Finale of the collection at the Grand Palais in Paris

Home girl in contemporary, fluid version of the traditional Chanel tweed suit, with cap and long pendant

Details of the robust knit jacket and new bracelet

 Bright pink fasteners added a dash of colour to a stylish tweed trouser suit

The Chanel camellia on a navy and dark red woven top 

The finale of the SS17 collection in Paris

Pale pink lace was a counterpoint to the harder edged digital motifs 

Pearl-encrusted pendant on an embossed, long silk dress

Lacy bomber jacket and pink skirt with low-heeled shoes

New Chanel hand bag in fuchsia with gold details

Strong contrasts of boxy, tweed jacket and delicate silk

Digital inspirations for the new accessories

Flowing lines, chunky jewellery and long pendants added to the sense of freewheeling comfort

 The Eighties had a comeback with big, decorative earrings

Strong colour and black contrasts made an interesting counterpoint to the pastel pink confections of silk and lace

Black and white elegance evokes Lagerfeld's masterful capacity as a designer

Christian Lacroix's New Furniture Collection by Sacha Walckhoff

Christian Lacroix creative director Sacha Walckhoff with one of the armchairs he designed for the collection with Roche Bobois 

A witty and graceful furniture collection with a surprising dash of robust vigour has been designed by Christian Lacroix's Creative Director Sacha Walckhoff and produced by Roche Bobois. Jeanne-Marie Cilento speaks to the effervescent designer about the inspirations and challenges that faced him creating a completely new oeuvre for the French fashion house

Hourglass chairs inspired by couture mannequins 

BRIMMING with creative energy and vision, Sacha Walckhoff still found it a great challenge to design an entire furniture collection of 20 different pieces, from curvaceous chairs to slim, elegant cabinets featuring architectural scenes, in two very short months. Although it is the first time Maison Christian Lacroix has created a furniture range, building on the house's lifestyle and homewares collection, Roche Bobois has already had collaborations with other high-end fashion labels, including Missoni, Sonia Rykiel and Jean Paul Gaultier.

"It could have been enjoyable but, in fact, it was quite frightening as I had to decide what kind of line to create, relevant for the global market for both brands."

Sacha Walckhoff says the pressure on him was enormous to create such a substantial new collection in a short time, representing two famous French brands. "I had total freedom, a 'carte blanche' given by Jean Dominique Lèze, the Nouveaux Classiques collection's director at Roche Bobois,'' says Walckhoff. "So it could have been enjoyable but, in fact, it was quite frightening as I had to decide what kind of line to create that would be relevant for Lacroix, for Roche Bobois and for the global market for both brands together. It was far too serious to enjoy anything, but I did at the end ...I must be a bit of a masochist!"

Gleaming brass, round side tables

The series of pieces, cleverly translates the exuberant Christian Lacroix aesthetic into a collection that ranges from accessories to upholstered and wooden furniture. Christian Lacroix as a fashion house was known for its extravagance, but today the brand focuses on more accessible luxury, producing a licensed menswear line and decorative upholstery fabrics, wallpaper, cushions, stationery and tableware. "This is not the first furniture line by a Couture house," Sacha Walckhoff says. "Ralph Lauren and Gianni Versace did it first, very wisely, more than 30 years ago and are still masters of the fashion becoming home décor nowadays,'' explains Walckhoff. "I had this in a corner of my mind as I wanted the home decor collections by Lacroix to be as relevant as the ones of those two masters of fashion and lifestyle.

"The Christian Lacroix House has a history of love for bold patterns and joyful colours. With the Lacroix CEO Nicolas Topiol, we were convinced that we should be able to create a home department at Lacroix based on this patrimony and when we did our first collection with Designers Guild in 2011, five years ago, it worked very well."



Lacquered, striped cubes for storage 

The new collection of furniture combines and remixes design eras to make something entirely new. Lacquered wood cubes are screen printed with striped patterns, their minimalism making them at home now or in the 1930s, shimmering brass details enliven wooden chairs and tables. Cabinets are embellished with artistic prints, including a landscape inspired by Arles in southern France (the birthplace of couturier Christian Lacroix) while a large screen is decorated with a variety of colourful plants and flowers but with modern skyscrapers.

"The most challenging part of designing this first furniture collection was finding the right balance between shapes, material and colours."

"The most challenging part of designing this first furniture collection, after those first five years only designing fabrics, rugs and wallpaper, was to find the right balance between shapes, material and colours," Walckhoff says."I went from designing two to three dimensional ideas and this is a huge and tremendous change! Beside this, you do not change your furniture as much as your wallpaper so I also had to have this in mind when designing the new furniture collection."

Following the couturier Christian Lacroix's exit from the company in 2009, Sacha Walckhoff took over the house designing the menswear and lifestyle collections which were introduced in 2011. Maison Christian Lacroix was originally founded as an haute couture house in 1987 by Christian Lacroix and Jean-Jacques Picart. After Lacroix left the fashion house, the women’s wear and couture collections were put on hold, but the maison was revived under the creative direction of Walckhoff who has lead the design and rebuilding of the brand. Today, the creative director says it seemed like the natural next step to create a furniture collection with Roche Bobois.

 Sacha Walckhoff's new designs

"We knew each other quite well as they have used our Lacroix fabrics on their own creations since the launch of our Lacroix Fabric collection with Designers Guild," Sacha Walckhoff says. "So to design furniture for them was the next step and it is an amazing company with almost 300 boutiques all around the world. The quality is exceptional, they are great, recognised professionals and we are both famous French brands, it is a perfect fit for all of us." Christian Lacroix's collection of fabrics, wallpapers and cushions are now all designed by Walckhoff. The current 2016 lifestyle collection, known as the Art de Vivre Collection, drew inspiration from the Incroyables et Merveilleuses of the French Revolution. Boldly coloured fabrics and wallpapers combine floral and modern digital prints for Lacroix's signature eclectic design.

"I was ready to go into furniture as I have designed pieces for the Gallery Gosserez in Paris and the brands Pouenat and Verreum. I was prepared, mentally and also technically."

Sacha Walckhoff says the collaboration with Roche Bobois also happened at the right time as Lacroix has become established as a homewares brand in the last five years and he has also personally developed his own design work. "It was the right timing for Lacroix, as now the brand is part of the world of decoration end design. I was also ready to go into furniture as I have designed, in the past two years, different pieces under my own name for the gallery Gosserez in Paris and the brands Pouenat and Verreum. So I was prepared, mentally and also technically."

The furniture collection  features lacquered wood cubes, a double-sided standing screen with brass details featuring a 19th century scene on one side and a garden setting on the other; and dining room chairs with shapely backs. Other home accessories in the range include lighting, mirrors, consoles and rugs, plus a long dining room table.



Sacha Walckhoff inspired by travel & exhibitions 

Today, Walckhoff says he does not look back to the Lacroix archives as he did in the beginning when creating the homewares and says fashion does not inspire his creative work directly. "In reality, it is much more about words, travels, exhibitions, ideas, style and a lovely personal life than fashion in reality," he says. "Fashion does not mean much anymore. There are still interesting collections of course but the fashion world has become too greedy, too much money is now involved in those big commercial houses and it does kill what fashion should be really about: vision, dream and fantasy.

"Fashion is not influential anymore for creative people like me. People on Reality TV are fashion gods now ~ that says everything about what fashion has become."

"So many collections are asked of the designers each year that it has no meaning anymore, everybody is copying everybody in a neurotic rhythm .Who needs 15 collections by the same brand in the same year?! Fashion is not influential anymore for creative people like me. Reality TV people are fashion gods now ~ that says everything about what fashion has become! But as I said already, designers like Simon Jacquemus, Raf Simons or Demna Gvasalia are trying to save what fashion really is about and I send them my love!"

Walckhoff worked with the couturier Christian Lacroix for 17 years before taking over as Creative Director, responsible for taking the brand in a new direction. Now more than six years later, he has successfully expanded Lacroix beyond a fashion house into interior design. He has also formed Christian Lacroix licensed collaborations with international brands such as the brilliant fabric and wallpaper collection with Designers Guild, carpets with Dutch brand Moooi and now the range of furniture with Roche Bobois.

 Rosewood tables and chairs are finished with brass details

Part of the new furniture collection's vivacity and liveliness is created by Walckhoff's romantic vision. "The 'love stories' between fashion and decor in the 20th Century inspired the collection: the couturier Jacques Doucet and Eileen Grey, Jeanne Lanvin and Armand Albert Rateau, the Groult couple (she was a fashion Couturier, he was a furniture designer ), Yves Saint Laurent and François Xavier Lalanne and ,of course, Christian Lacroix himself and Garouste et Bonetti,'' he says. "Between those two different worlds there always have been admiration and beauty exchanged. This is very inspirational to me. I needed also to add a little bit of humor on top of all this love! So I decided to select specific details of each decade of the 20th Century French Art Decoratif style and mix them together in the same furniture collection.

"Individual pieces look like you know them but you don't because the shape is from the Sixties but the materials are from the Thirties...It is a huge collage of a over a century of creations!"

"The result is exactly what I wanted, individual pieces that look like you know them but you don't because the shape is from the Sixties but the materials (rosewood and gold-plated brass) are from the Thirties. Then you have stripes from the Seventies or an organic shape that could be from the Fifties or even the Eighties...I had a lot of fun doing this, it is a huge collage over a century of creations!"

In the collection, dining room chairs feature backs shaped like hourglasses, an homage to the mannequins in the original Lacroix haute couture atelier in Paris: "A little bit of glamour to sit on!" Walckhoff says. Whereas these chairs are slim, the new armchairs and footstools are more free-form, robust and rotund. The designer says the idea was to mix the styles of Jean Royère, Vladimir Kagan and Garouste and Bonetti together. "I wanted an organic, assymetrical shape with a great comfort and those armchairs are now a best seller at Roche Bobois!"



Screen with flowers, palm tress, follies and skyscrapers 

A double-sided standing screen features a nineteenth century scene from Christian Lacroix’s hometown of Arles, France on one side and a garden print on the other. Amid the foliage are images of palm trees taken from throughout time, ranging from illustrations to a modern photograph. Within the collection, there are also lamps, tables, mirrors, consoles and rugs. Designed for Roche Bobois’ Nouveaux Classiques collection, the pieces are designed to integrate with existing furniture, allowing for mixing and matching.

The signature exuberance and eclecticism and sheer joie de vivre of Christian Lacroix did influence the design of the collection, says Walckhoff: "Yes, of course, it was the final touch! For example, the screen is double faced because sometimes you see life in colours and sometimes in black and white! So the enchanted garden design Bagatelle is on one side, a collage of plants from different styles mixing 19th Century engravings with contemporary photography of palm trees.

"We did it in the studio and it is an image that makes you happy. On the other side of the screen, we printed this 19th Century black and white engraving representing the monuments in Arles (not only the home town of Monsieur Lacroix but where Vincent Van Gogh became famous). It is elegant, historical, a bit more serious.Two moods for the price of one!"