Paris Fashion Week: Loewe's 1940s espionage thriller

A café-style backdrop made the old-fashioned French movie glamour of this show a hit

Paris and people-watching go together like pain et raisins or brie and baguette. At Loewe they imported people-watching to prêt à porter by seating the audience around street café-style tables and passing out snacks. Exhibiting the same effortless facility that so often sees me seated next to the toilets in real Parisian cafés, The Times got a rubbish seat in a snack-vacuum. Mais tant pis — from here, that people-watching was top-notch.

Swooning violins gave this show a frisson of intrigue. Wearing a collection that had a glamour and sleekness to rival Gucci and Oscar de la Renta, Loewe woman could have stalked her way directly out of a 1940s espionage thriller. By day (for the jittery train journeys or the anxious briefings in unglamorous arrondisements) there were beautiful bouclé combos, tux-style trouser suits and jacket-skirt arrangements that Dietrich would have died for.

And by night, for her turn stoically honey-trapping the ham-faced baddy, there was a shimmering, somehow multicoloured glittery number of such arresting beauty that it would assure any half-hearted siren total success.

The only dud scene was a brown leather dress — more dumpy fall-girl than top-tier Mata Hari. That aside, any keen-eyed boulevardier observing Loewe’s heroine pass by his café table would be undone in a flash.

Writers name

Luke Leitch, The Times 09-03-2010

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