Runway.....Steffie Christiaens, Spring Summer 2012, Rue Vivienne, Paris
Saturday, August 18, 2012
What comes out in the wash….
Fashion moves quickly, or should I say, people move briskly.
So when sitting trackside at a runway in Paris, it can be hard to register this
speeding spectacle, let alone illustrate it. Far too often the invited guests,
location and even the journalists are all fighting it out for attention. It is
my job to find some elegance amongst this rat race and capture it on paper.
At the Steffie Christiaens SS runway for 2012, the pace was startling.
In fact, waiting in line offered a welcome change to see the pack slow down.
This waiting in the wings - in this case on a side street near the legendary Opéra de Paris -
allowed me some time to take in the crowd and atmosphere.
Despite this brief slow down, the show and its followers didn’t sink in
till the following day, as I worked out the culture of launderettes in the
Fifth. For where ever there is fashion there is also and without doubt:
dry-cleaning, washing machines and dryers.
Here in a more down to earth fashion based world I started sketching out
my memory of the shows the days before. Marking out the extreme silhouettes of
the collections that had just made their way down the runway, while my own
collection tumble-dried away.
So as the summer pieces of Steffie Christiaens currently make their way
to the racks, I thought it was time to show a little insight into my process by
posting a few pages from my Paris notebook. These are sketches that I use to
make sense of a fashion world moving faster and faster, and a city that continues
to captivate whether you are watching a runway or your washing.
LG