Lagerfeld: Very La Vigie

A Mediterranean mood at the house of Lagerfeld, where the leitmotif was La Vigie, the beautiful villa/palace in which Karl resided on the frontier of Monaco and France.

La Vigie’s elegantly easy mood wafted through the collection. The Monaco print appeared in a series of elegiac seaside sketches, featured in cotton pajamas, silk shirts, and denim jean jackets.

“Karl lived there very happily for many years. La Vigie was just a great villa but also a tropical garden with many birds as well,” explained Lagerfeld’s designer Kun Kim in a presentation in the brand’s city villa headquarters in St. Germain.

La Vigie’s classical lines also inspired the construction of clothes, many of which have big shoulders. Kun riffed on the 1980s with many power silhouettes and even darted white shirts with padded shoulders.

Sticking with the house’s neo-expressionist DNA, Kun presented matte jersey cocktail, very smart silk pajama pants trimmed in a KL signature frieze, or a cotton striped twin set with shorts and tiny mirror buttons in Karl’s profile. Also impressive were semi-sheer polyester organza trenches and a super safari jacket with detachable

All could be worn with a new bag, whose silver metallic handle was in the shape of the late Karl’s beloved cat, Choupette.

“This season feels like an homage to Karl,” said Kun, who further celebrated the founder with a rockin’ fête in the Palais de Tokyo, whose DJ was Paris Hilton, star of the brand’s newest campaign. KL, in other words, is still happening in Paris.

Torishéju: Dumi debates with Dürer

Torishéju won the LVMH Savoir-Faire Prize this month, and after witnessing her brave and often beautiful collection this Wednesday, one can see why she fully merited the award.

A thinking woman’s designer, Torishéju Dumi blends all sorts of references—military, industrial and utilitarian—in smart, coherent clothes. Like her excellent opening look on Naomi Campbell, a smart black wool jacket with a ladylike peplum and extended shoulders, suggesting a chevalier’s armor.

She showed super-lieutenant-on-maneuvers ribbed wool jerseys paired with cool, asymmetrical ruffled skirts; perfectly draped, streaked wool dresses with frayed hems; or a fab second-skin, raspberry leather, boyish shirt and over-long pants. Every look felt a little arty, yet always plausible—the mark of a truly talented designer. One rare guy wore a striking priestly soutane in men’s shirting fabric that blended the sacred with the profane.

A theme of the collection riffed on the art of Albrecht Dürer.

“Just as Albrecht Dürer once explored the tensions between the divine and the earthly, this collection turns its gaze toward the intersections of chaos and control, the body and the system, thought and form,” wrote Dumi in her intellectual program.

A graduate of both the London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins, of Nigerian-Brazilian origin and London-raised, Torishéju is a special talent. A designer who looks very much. In a word, Torishéju has staying power and panache.

Olivia von Halle: Co-branding with cool at Costes

One co-op capsule collection that looks destined for success is Olivia von Halle’s link-up with the Hôtel Costes, feted this week in the packed bar of Paris’ eternally coolest hotel.

The Lila Liaisons—a revamped version of von Halle’s bestselling pajama silhouette—is the key to this luxury loungewear collection. It comes accompanied by the Deneuve Liaisons headscarf and Audrey Costes, a riff on the brand’s signature eye mask.

Made in Costes’ signature fiery red, one could not help but notice the extra attention the barmen, who wore the tops, were receiving at the soirée.

The partnership marks the second with Olivia von Halle—the maker of thoroughly swish pajamas—with a major-league hotel. It follows on Olivia von Halle’s link-up with The Carlyle to create a pajama line for the legendary Madison Avenue hotel.

The Costes collection is mainly made from beautiful silk dévoré, with the pattern remarkably burnout. The print, born from a hand-drawn sketch in Olivia von Halle’s London atelier, plays on Costes codes—a meeting of “les années folles” spirit, wisps of smoke spelling “Costes,” and a soupçon of naughtiness. Ideal, in other words, for the new, refined, sexy sweeping fashion.

“I’ve always loved the idea of turning a mood, a place, a feeling into a pajama. And at Costes, our pieces feel perfectly at home,” said Olivia. And at one’s own home too.