The Soiree Is Over
Stephen Burrows's Joie de Vivre Fails Him In a Cutthroat World

By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 10, 2006

PARIS, Oct. 9

More than 30 years ago, American designer Stephen Burrows had a moment of triumph at Versailles. And now he has returned to France to present his spring collection in hopes of reclaiming some of that success. His Sunday afternoon show served as a tutorial in the ways the industry has changed.

In 1973, Burrows was one of a handful of Americans invited to participate in a fashion gala alongside some of the greatest French designers. Burrows stood out in a group that included Yves Saint Laurent and Halston, in part because his clothes had a celebratory, sweet sensibility at a time when fashion was formal and serious. He used models -- many of them black -- who brought energy to their runway performance. They were more actors than stoic mannequins.

Since then, Burrows's career has been a roller coaster of groundbreaking successes and disheartening defeat. He was the first African American designer to achieve international acclaim. He was the first to have his own mainstream fragrance. But he has also found himself without any major American retail accounts. He has had to go hat in hand in search of financing simply to put on a show and produce samples.

In his show in a small auditorium in the Carrousel du Louvre, he offered his signature aesthetic. His clothes, with their slightly gathered "lettuce" hems, came in a rainbow of colors. Raspberry, melon, grape and lemon might be combined on a single body-embracing gown. All in all, his collection was quite pretty.

His models opened the show clapping in unison. They strutted down the runway -- flirting, smiling, toying with the audience. And contrary to other designers this past week, Burrows offered proof that there is more than one qualified model of color for hire in Paris.

With all the enthusiasm on the runway, you couldn't help but smile. But there was a nagging reality hanging in the air that left one feeling slightly melancholy.

The designer's show space was not full. Not even close. The name cards on seats read more like a wish list of guests rather than confirmed attendees. Almost entire rows, reserved for major American fashion publications, sat empty. There was no lure of major advertising dollars, after all.

It may be that what made Burrows's work so distinctive in his heyday -- his ability to capture a mood in the culture -- has become commonplace. And what made his shows such a happening -- their partylike, informal atmosphere -- has become outmoded.

Burrows recalls a time when fashion was about looking good, feeling cool and dressing your friends for a night out. Everything else was a bonus. But fashion has been transformed into a precariously balanced inverted pyramid. High finance, theatrics, celebrity, dealmaking and licensing are all perched atop a tiny pile of frocks.

It is the rare fashion house now that survives purely on the sales of its clothes. And designers who thought they would enjoy colorful lives dressing their friends for late-night carousing have gone through detox and are now answering to corporate bosses. Even independent designers finance their pet projects by moonlighting for big companies.

Chloe made a splash with its trapeze-shaped dresses and jackets, but it is the bags that one sees on the streets. Alexander McQueen is an audacious designer, but he survives largely on the strength of his fragrance, his theatrics and the good faith of Gucci Group, his corporate parent. Louis Vuitton dabbles in ready-to-wear, but it is in the business of leather goods.

Lanvin

At Lanvin, where designer Alber Elbaz delivered one of the best collections of the season, the emphasis is on financial restraint, shoes, jewelry and refraining from giving the merchandise away to clients who can afford to buy it.

Elbaz presented his collection Sunday evening at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts. In dramatic fashion, his first model appeared at the top of a long, narrow runway. She was dressed in a black tank dress, its matte fitted bodice juxtaposed with a glossy, knife-pleated skirt. A fuchsia flourish streaked across the neckline like a reassuring wink. Don't worry: The clothes are slick. The heels are precariously high. The look is tough and film noir. But it's not mean. No one will get hurt.

The backs of the dresses were open except for the crisscross of straps that looked like a man's set of braces. Dresses floated with the lightness of parachute silk but with sportswear touches like flap pockets and industrial zippers.

The trousers were skinny but not tight. They were enticing, but it was hard for them to compete with the dresses' dazzling color combinations such as an olive and aubergine T-shirt dress as glossy as patent leather but as light as silk. Another dress mimicked a skirt and a baseball jacket. The front was uninterrupted but the back was split in two to reveal a provocative half-circle of skin.

A lot of designers this season have used similar aesthetic building blocks. Dries Van Noten used sportswear shapes -- gym pants, polo shirts, baseball jackets -- in a collection that injected these casual wardrobe staples with glamour. Nicolas Ghesquiere created a futuristic collection at Balenciaga with his use of glossy materials, aggressive cuts and incomparable imagination. And virtually every designer dabbled in minidresses, pleats and femininity.

But Elbaz combined them in a unique way. It was as though he pulled together all of the disparate elements of the season and made sense of them. He made them beautiful and powerful.

Alexander McQueen, John Galliano

The happily clapping mannequins who opened the Burrows show seemed quaint compared to the new standard of theatrics in the fashion industry. Alexander McQueen had a group of chamber musicians serenading an audience in a theater-in-the-round setting at the Cirque d'Hiver. The male musicians were dressed in gray tailcoats; the women wore long gowns the color of slate. An enormous cobweb-covered chandelier hung low over the center of the stage. Signaling the start of the production, it rose slowly with the first notes from violins and a harpsichord.

The models glided out in elaborate headdresses and long embroidered skirts, jackets that recalled the Edwardian period, and ruffled dresses that brushed the floor. Mixed in with the costumes, McQueen also showed a few expertly cut pantsuits and loosefitting evening trousers in dove gray worn with a pale pink strapless top with a trailing tail of ruffles.

McQueen's collection, with its intricate detail and grand flourishes, left one wondering what precisely he planned on selling. No woman is in the market for a long skirt with enough padding along the hips to turn her into an enormous pear.

But McQueen understands that his job is not merely to make pretty clothes. He has to create a brand image in order to sell the fragrance and his new lower-priced collection: McQ.

Those who succeed in fashion over the long haul must be experts at reinvention. They are constantly tweaking their collections, striving to make them younger. Modern, modern, modern. That's the relentless mantra of the design business. It is not necessary to entirely forsake one's defining aesthetic. But a designer has to constantly make cultural connections. An observer might be hard-pressed to recall an instance in which Janet Jackson has worn a Valentino gown. But it was savvy for Valentino to have her at his show last week. She has a new CD. After having lost 60 pounds, she's enjoying a bit of adoration from celebrity magazines. Everyone can cash in on that.

Designer John Galliano is a cultural chameleon, a shape-shifter who changes his own look while filling his collections with surprises. For the collection he showed Saturday, he stocked his audience with performers including Lenny Kravitz and the celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe.

The presentation opened with a group of white suits that were flattering but not particularly interesting. The jackets were belted and the skirts fell to the knee. They emphasized the rounded shoulder, a polished aesthetic and a curvaceous shape. There were draped dresses in a graphic black-and-white flower print. He mixed lacquered fabric, which looked almost like melting rubber, with traditional jersey in colorful dresses that jolted the eye with blasts of purple, fuchsia and an avalanche of sequins. The dresses were at times garish, the rubber effect not at all attractive. But the short dresses slowly began to evolve into gowns. The hemlines dropped to the floor, the sequins became more controlled and the strange fabrics less in evidence.

Galliano's collection explored silhouettes, fabric technology, the use of volume and color. At times his experimentation was unsuccessful. But there were also moments when one of his strange dresses would redefine "pretty" and lodge itself in the imagination.

Burrows was known for the cast of characters who swarmed around him -- beautiful people living enviable lives. Even in his heyday, he instinctively knew that fame brought fortune. His friend the model Pat Cleveland was dutifully giving interviews about his brilliance. But the fashion shows here have brought out Natalie Portman, Kanye West, Katie Holmes (inexplicably wearing a black formal gown at the Giambattista Valli show at 12:30 in the afternoon), Pharrell Williams and Paul McCartney. The ubiquitous Jackson attended more than a half-dozen shows, her Winnebago-sized security guard and his muscleheads clogging exits and entrances everywhere they went. Burrows needed more than a retired model to add glitter to his show.

Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Miu Miu

Stephen Burrows cannot compete with fashion's great showmen. And he is not a corporate designer who can send whatever he pleases down the runway because he has revenue from handbags and shoes to pay the bills.

Marc Jacobs, who designs for Louis Vuitton, can indulge in ruffled skirts, layered dresses, corset tops and billowing shirts. Vuitton is a leather-goods brand. The clothes are available in only a handful of Vuitton boutiques and then only in dribs and drabs. Sunday afternoon, models marched out clutching small leather purses in faded blue with trompe l'oeil details. Schoolgirl satchels were covered in multicolored leather paillettes. And Jacobs transformed the throwaway shopping bag -- the plaid nylon satchels that street vendors use to transport their wares -- into a designer boondoggle by stamping an LV logo on the side and upping the price.

For Hermes -- think leather goods, ties and fancy scarves -- the inspiration for the brand's Saturday evening show was a cruise. The models sauntered along the runway in designer Jean Paul Gaultier's satin shorts with matching jackets, long and fluid dresses in almost transparent scarf prints and cropped baseball-style jackets that wrapped around the torso. Most important, there was also a new Birkin-ish bag that collapsed and was secured with a bit of leather that wound around the outside.

Miuccia Prada presented her Miu Miu collection -- shoes, shoes, shoes -- in a private residence in an elegant neighborhood not far from the Arc de Triomphe. Her models wandered through the rooms wearing high platform shoes in colorful silk.

The clothes included cadet blue trousers that sit at the natural waistline and blouses in color blocks of blue and raspberry with tiny white round collars. There were also short skirts with petal-shaped panels in similarly strong colors. The combination had the sharp primness of a school uniform.

Her dresses came in abstract prints -- Spirograph meets Jackson Pollock -- and with hemlines that fell to mid-calf. Skirts sat high on the waist and fell almost to the ankles. It was a contrary commentary on hemlines in a season that has shown them predominantly mid-thigh or to the floor.

These small shows with nontraditional runways keep the focus on clothes and ideas. The models just walk; they don't perform. It's business, not a social occasion.

In hindsight, one wishes that Burrows had produced a show such as the one organized by designer Martin Grant. It was an intimate presentation and the audience could almost reach out and touch the splendid garments as they passed by.

Grant's clothes are not fussy and precious, but they retain a bit of romance. They have enough fashion in them to make a woman feel up on the zeitgeist. His sleeveless dresses with their pleated skirts and drawstring collars had the sportiness of tennis clothes. His cherry red shift with its crushed pleats was irresistible. And a bright red rain slicker with short sleeves was as fanciful as a gumdrop.

Burrows's clothes, after all these years, still have merit. He is a talented designer. But he tried in vain to recapture the atmosphere of a party that for fashion ended a long time ago.