beauty call

Balmain Spring 09 RTW

In beautylab, we talk a lot about fantasy.  It’s one of the trends we’ve seen clearly and consistently since the beginning of the recession, and it appears overwhelmingly in fashion.  Over the past few seasons, the most popular collections have been those that were the most overtly escapist and romantic.  For Fall 09, we are again seeing the idea of the nostalgic remix with allusions to magical realities – none more popular than Balmain’s rock and roll Party Girl.

Described exuberantly by Sally Singer and Sophia Neophitou as “trash and vaudeville” with overtones of “abandoned sluttiness”, Balmain’s Fall 09 RTW collection was more pragmatically described by Roopal Patel, Senior Womens Fashion Director of Bergdorf Goodman, as “major money in the bank.”  According to Patel, the wildly popular Spring 09 RTW collection hit the floor and sold out in less than a month.  This is not tourists smacking each other around for a $90 Roberto Cavalli dress at H&M.  With an average retail price hovering right around $8,000, to sell out of an entire Balmain collection in this economy is something like a miracle for the struggling retailer.

What is it about Balmain’s remixed eighties designs that make women so willing to fork over the cash?  Backstage, Neophitou explains, “I think nostalgia has a funny effect on people.  You long for things you thought were too much then.”   Women long for the day when any display of excess will be morally acceptable and they also identify in Balmain the promise of a more simple pleasure – Christophe Decarnin’s clothes are FUN.  A proselytizing media tells our customer she’ll lose her job any day, that she should just stay at home in her worthless apartment worrying over her decimated 401k.  And to make matters worse she can’t even go shopping because it’s the eighth deadly sin and if she did it wouldn’t make her feel any better because even Barneys feels like Bargain Barn.

Would it make her feel better to buy a $20,000 dress with rainbow sequins and march down to Meatpacking in diamond shoes with a leather studded handbag to PARTY HER FACE OFF LIKE THERE’S NO TOMORROW?  Probably.  And that’s why she pays $8000 for a Michael Jackson coat.  Escape and fantasy.

Title quote: Tim Blanks, via style.com