There is a sense of exuberance, a joie de vivre, in Saquiba Suleman's paintings. Her subjects, always female figures, grow seamlessly out of fields of flowers, or are juxtaposed against geometric shapes: the
Lynn Yaeger: Dowdiness at Dior, Friskiness at Isabel Marant, and Exuberance at ...
Was Margo Channing thinking of Nina Ricci when she claimed that she planned to get married in a fur coat over a nightgown? The louche outerwear here sports lopsided fur collars (like the garment itself just got out of bed after a rough night) thrown over a whispery negligee gown, lending an irresistible air of Gallic dishabille, even though the designer, like so many other big names showing in Paris this week, is actually British. Dries van Noten realizes that a rakishly tossed green army coat cannot fail to elevate a languid abstract-print shift; Jean Paul Gaultier tries this same trick with a variety of leathers at a show which runs to skin-tight metallics and other nasty-girl flourishes. (The soundtrack here, the Velvet Underground's "I’m Waiting for the Man ," which has Lou Reed singing the line “$26 in my hand” — to buy heroin, but that’s another story — is a bit incongruous when you realize that even $2,600 wouldn’t buy one of these ensembles.)
