Paris, Hôtel Meurice, from our fashion correspondent Harald Nicolas Stazol

AT LAST! there is a colour, bright and gaudy and signaling, like a bright light in the dark stormy sea of Wall Street, Nikkei and the City! and whom to thank for? who is the wizard, the messiah of men´s fashion (ok, perhaps that takes it a bit too far…there was this purple turtleneck at Ungaro after all, and the neon round the shoes and calves at Petar Petrov , but totally unwearable, i fear..), the irresistible signal giver? A WOMAN!

Enter Véronique Nichanian

of Hèrmes (wild applause!!!) .

What vision, what unheeding of the current crisis, what force of combination! une tour-de-force, and un coup-de-grâce to all-consuming depression – in one single blow! and in acid yellow! who else would put on show a crocodile coat? (and who will afford it? but that doesn´t matter) What did Frederick the Great do in the most severe prussian depression after the Seven-year-war? He built himself a palace, the Neue Palais in Potsdam, from 1763 bto 1769…

…and thereby created thousands of jobs for carpenters, builders, gardeners, outfitters, servants, weavers and the like. it is said that he spent only seven days in total at his 200 room dream-come-true. That´s the spirit! Obama, take heed!
But see for yourselves:

Kazuyuki Kumagai is a name one should be on the lookout-for by all means for blending exquisite taste and tailoring with the undying implications of the modern urban punk. Though one problem remains unsolved, the eternal paradox in menswear: Who of the ephebes who can carry these outfits with sensual aplomb and give cutting edge to the scene can actually afford them? And they look a bit grumpy, which i like, like student-protesters who are fed up with the current status quo and don´t give heed to any conventions. At least the trend is to be followed by easy copying and bringing it into streetstyle with some care.

let´s see what the last throes of paris will have to offer as the last day passes, the suspense quite frankly is only bearable with some champagne – whose consumption, I gather from the gasps of the sizzling wine cellars and sommeliers, has gone down about 15 percent worldwide so far (well, a cremant should do then, we all have to economize after all).

Well, but though surely not at Dior. Diana Vreeland once said „you can´t either be too slim or too rich“ – well, and if this doesn´t fit perfectly to the Dior homme man – or boy – les mots me manquent. There is this minuscule quota of refinement and air that is present in all the presented pieces, marking Dior as the most prestigious luxury label after all, and, well, Dior is Dior. Whether it was necessary to preheat the audience with radiators from above is questionnable, though perhaps a nice touch against the sleek coolness that was pervading the air right from the beginning of the toned down and fine cut presentation. The techno music was surely debatable. It´s this extra little edge that Kris Van Assche put into the collection with his asymmetrical, geometric cuts and a touch of upper-class-punk, of course taking refuge into black and white, and black and white it is. Those gloves with the white-stiched, highlighted indexfinger-pieces might well be the most stunning accessoire seen this whole season. But again, those, who look best in the clothes, will have to steal them. The gap between wearability and presentation is a Grand Canyon –  but can well be overlooked from the aesthete´s point of view.

If there would be something as Haute Couture pour Homme, Dior would be the perfect thing – sans doute.

But then, of course, there is Lanvin. „We wanted to deliver an optimistic message“, says Lucas Ossendrijver, Lanvin’s men’s wear designer, thereby stating his own sense of that new word of prey, so prone to every usage of every sociopolitical tongue untied: Change. „Give people something real and find the real solutions to their clothes, change things and propose newness.“ And Lanvin´s creative director Alber Elbaz comments: “In difficult times the public needs something uplifting. You can either take a Tylenol or wear a Lanvin suit.” And what suits they are! Flowing, voluptous, light and with a certain schoolboy-attitude, complete with little, jaunty caps and those enchanting silk scarves, smooth and thin like a lovers kiss. Real clothes for real people, one might think. And suddenly, on the spur of a moment, in the Midst of Paris, here in courtyard of the Lycée Carnot, I think: There it is, the most touching of emotions, so unique and rare in le monde de la mode – a true, pure moment of Avantgarde.

With this, I leave Paris – and you to perhaps more important issues than men´s fashion – if they exist at all nowadays. If reality is too bleak, men of taste flee into a dreamland: „If you see a fair form chase it, and if possible embrace it“, the great W.H.Auden once wrote.  And who am I to disagree… til New York in february, that is.
all pictures wwd.com