Real women on Vuitton runway
2010-03-11 08:44
Paris - Bodacious models, their curves barely under wraps in 1940s-style skirt suits, paraded in looks meant for real women at Louis Vuitton's autumn-winter 2010-11 ready-to-wear display on Wednesday.
French supermodel Laetitia Casta opened the show, which was channelling Christian Dior's iconic post-WW 2 New Look style, with nip-waisted jackets and ample skirts in dusty gray, powder pink and mauve hues.
Other runway stars, like Australia's Elle Macpherson - whose nickname "The Body" still rings true - and Dutch model Lara Stone, a size 4, also rocked their womanly looks.
"I feel like a real woman who is glamorous, who's taking care of herself, who's not afraid of her body," Czech-born model Karolina Kurkova told The Associated Press in a backstage interview. Wednesday's show was among her first since giving birth to a baby boy four months ago, she added.
The smash line-up of curvy models was a welcome change from the rail thin teenagers with bizarre postures and jerky gaits who dominate today's catwalks. The girls at Vuitton were the picture of refined elegance, strolling leisurely around a monumental fountain in the middle of the set.
Light streamed in through the plastic sheeting of the venue - a tent set up in a courtyard of the Louvre Museum. After a week of unseasonably nippy weather in Paris, the crowd of fashion insiders finally thawed out in the hothouse-like tent.
- SAPA