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John Galliano: Hollywood Divas Wake Up

John Galliano went west to Hollywood in a retro flash Spring 2010 collection of great individual pieces, where his romanticism and wit were very much to the fore.

His theme was a Hollywood awakening from a half-century long scriptwriters’ strike, so the movie divas, in this case the models, were raring to go when they hit the catwalk on Wednesday, Oct. 7, in the Halle Freyssinet, the former railway station in eastern Paris that has become the hot place to show in the city.

“I took all the creative team to Los Angeles and we toured all the mansions of Tallulah Bankhead, Rudolph Valentino, Lillian Gish. The gods and goddesses of Hollywood had amazing villas, totally wicked,” said Galliano backstage.

Being Galliano, he came back from California with his own take on racy femininity, in a show which contained many of his classic ideas about fashion, yet enough new spin to keep things fresh, and rather naughty.

The designer was pretty much in sync with the current mania for all things sheer and transparent for next spring. But his take – plisse and pleated printed semi-transparent silks and chiffons, doubled and tripled, felt a lot fresher than many of his colleagues.

The transplanted Englishman sees divas alternating between girly lace blouses and summery dresses with his own obsession with Edwardian frock coats, though this time jazzed up with lots of medallions and brooches.

He was also smart enough to throw in the odd dash of crazy sportswear, like the great crystal encrusted, high collar safari paired with chiffon miniskirt on blonde Russian Natasha Poly, the world’s most in-demand catwalk model.

His movies stars are, of course, faintly mad. Raging down the catwalk, their hair was packed with gold sprayed flowers. On their feet were sensational Art Deco table-leg heeled platforms and on their heads, sassy Spanish contessa sunglasses, the fruit of the designer’s latest joint venture with Italian eyewear specialist Marcolin.

Faintly vengeful, faintly desperate to have a great time after 50 years in aspic, the new Galliano screen goddess is very much ready for two things: Love and a great close-up.

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