In a season split into such diverse directions, the eighties element that’s been added in Paris represents another, more glamorous take on the Japanese-Parisian cutting and general avant-garde vibes. It was in Daniel Buren’s stripy black and white columns at the Palais-Royal that Roland Mouret found his Spring/Summer 2014 inspiration. And it wasn’t hard to imagine the Mouret girl walking around the art park in her geometrical stripy skirt, mesh top, and shiny crocodile jacket circa 1986.
With an eclectic soundtrack featuring an African song, a sped up version of Rihanna’s Rude Boy and some rap, Mouret created a collection that was possibly more eighties than the eighties themselves. It was hyper-eighties, if you will, complete with little meshy Karl Lagerfeld gloves and wildly shiny fuchsia cocktail dresses. While some of it suffered a certain amount of eighties overload, the collection shone in Mouret’s trademark structuring, which doubtlessly paid a nod to that of Mugler and Montana. But it also served as a reminder of an era when things were bolder and more daring, not unlike Buren’s much-discussed art piece itself, and in that sense it was fun.
