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| Opulence. Maybe there's something in the air of Paris that inspires it.<br><br>
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| There's the proliferation of palais (petit or grand) for designers to show their collections in, the galleries filled with florid, lurid art, and the haute couture, of course, opulence cubed and then wrapped in duchesse satin for good measure. They all do something to designers, no matter how minimally minded.<br><br>It's certainly done something to Marc Jacobs. Compare and contrast the first Louis Vuitton collection he presented oh-so-quietly 16 years ago with the ball-busting extravaganza unveiled last Wednesday, part �Turn Back Time� video, part Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls<br><br>
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| It was an indulgent farewell to a house that has helped redefine the meaning of luxury goods in the 21st century. Indulgent for Jacobs, but also for the audience, a funereal feast for the eyes, Jacobs' all-black swansong. The Stephen Jones headdresses were inspired by Ziegfeld Follies and Cher's 1986 Oscars outfit<br>
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| Says it all<br>
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| Jacobs declared that the collection was obsessed with �pure adornment�, reasoning that �connecting with something on a superficial level is as honest as connecting with it on an intellectual level�. That's an interesting conceit. Contemporary fashion, like contemporary art, tends to be overthoug<br><br>
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| If not by designers, then certainly by critics. After all, we have to justify our presence there. And the Air Miles we rack <br>.
| | French luxury goods [http://Www.Twitpic.com/tag/maker+Hermes maker Hermes] voiced its frustration at having arch-rival LVMH as its biggest external shareholder at its annual general meeting on Tuesday and once more called on the group to sell its stake.<br><br>LVMH, the world's biggest luxury group, which owns 23 percent of Hermes, was fined 8 million euros by the French market watchdog AMF last year for failing to properly disclose its building [http://www.pcs-systems.co.uk/Images/celinebag.aspx http://www.pcs-systems.co.uk/Images/celinebag.aspx] of a stake before 2010.<br><br>Hermes, the 177-year-old maker of Birkin and Kelly handbags which is more than 70 percent family-owned, has been vehemently protesting the presence of LVMH in its shareholder capital ever since it learned of its surprise entry in 2010.<br>"We do not want shareholders that are rivals," Hermes Chief Executive Axel Dumas told the company's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday. "We want to preserve our independence."<br><br>After the meeting, Dumas told Reuters he was "not aware" whether LVMH would be willing to sell down its stake.<br>In an interview with Le Figaro newspaper published on Tuesday, Dumas said: "LVMH is totally free to sell its shares and to be honest, would be welcome to do so."<br>LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, Dior and Celine fashion brands, has repeatedly said it was "satisfied" being Hermes' shareholder and backed its management's strategy.<br><br>"But satisfied does not mean friendly," Dumas told Le Figaro. And they (LVMH) are not particularly friendly with our management."<br>Separately, Dumas said Hermes was considering opening a shop in South Africa in the medium term, preferably in Johannesburg. He said he expected sales in Japan, one of the company's biggest markets where sales rose 6.5 percent at constant exchange rates in 2013, would be similar this year.<br><br>Hermes shares - which have lost nearly 2 percent since Jan 1 after climbing nearly 17 percent in 2013 - were barely changed in midday trading at 259.2 euros, valuing the company at 27.4 billion euros.<br>That makes Hermes the third largest luxury group by market capitalisation behind LVMH and Richemont.<br>(Reporting by Pascale Denis and Astrid Wendlandt; Editing by Sophie Walker) |
| Marco Zanini also showed his final collection for the house of Rochas. He's moving to Schiaparelli. Like Jacobs, he was obsessed with surface, with dumb, straightforward beauty. His was sugary sweet, in pastels that made your teeth ache, dedicated to Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menager<br>.
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| Banish thoughts of tormented southern belles. Zanini focused on the crystalline beauty of said ornaments, bonding devor� velvet to organza and freckling iridescent fabrics with Swarovski g<br><br>
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| Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli took a precious approach, too. Their Valentino collection was inspired by the Rome Opera, apparently. In actual fact, it was all about the heavily embellished surfaces of lace and tulle. Lawn shirts seemed included purely as foil for all that decoration, a palette clean<br><br>
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| It would have made it easier [http://www.pcs-systems.co.uk/Images/celinebag.aspx Celine Bag Online] to enjoy Hedi Slimane's latest Saint Laurent collection if you could take it at face value. Look! Sequinned lips! Flames! Lurex pop-socks! Removed from the heritage of Saint Laurent, it had a pop, pap appeal. If you stopped looking for a hidden depth, the soul-searching that Yves Saint Laurent made an intrinsic part of his fashion, Slimane ticked bo<br><br>
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| Girls who want to look like that will love to dress in t<br>s.
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| Karl Lagerfeld has always been about surface. His toying with the hallmarks of Chanel - tweeds, camellias, pearls, chains, those two-tone shoes - has always been about ironic appropriation, post-modern reinterpretation. It's the fashion equivalent of Jeff Ko<br><br>
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| He showed his latest Chanel collection in an art gallery. At least, it was on the surface. It was all fake, only the clothes were real. And they were pure Chanel, the art-house backdrop just that. I kept thinking of something Dinos Chapman once said to me: �I think that the art world and the high-end fashion world� are the same peop<br>.�
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| People wanted to buy the Chanel works of art as surely as they wanted to buy the Chanel clothes. They both became post-modern commod<br>ies.
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| That's looking below the surface, though, behind the opulence of Chanel's specially woven, artfully unravelling tweeds that resembled rag-rugs, the canvas bags with a 2.55 fa�ade painted on the front, the graffitied art-student backpacks. They were just great, covetable fashion, brilliant pro<br><br>s.
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| That brings us, inevitably, to Phoebe Philo. She's known for great products - photography is banned in the C�line showroom for fear of rampant copying. And rightfully so. Still, that oft-imitated C�line hallmark is an ascetic aesthetic. Philo is the last designer one imagines inclined to opu<br><br>e.
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| But her riotously messy spring C�line collection felt fresh and energetic, pleated skirts bouncing below an elongated torso, fringe swaying on latticed leather bags, mashed-up metal formed into enamelled bracelets and <br>els.
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| Couture, of course, breeds opulence. Riccardo Tisci halted his made-to-measure line this year, but the handicraft of couture infected his spring collection, from the crystal-encrusted masks, to feather-embroidered bodices, to a series of sequinned, sinuous multi-pleat evening <br><br>s.
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| Those were old-school [http://answers.Yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=opulent&submit-go=Search+Y!+Answers opulent]. For modern couture, and a contemporary opulence, fashion turns to Raf Simons. His last Dior haute-couture collection met mixed reviews, but has inspired many a designer. The throbbing mood of Africa that beat through the collections, albeit slightly hackneyed, can be traced to S<br>ons.
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| This time, he pushed his aesthetic further still. It felt a collection in flux, sitting halfway between Dior past and Simons future, a cross-pollination. The inspiration was flowers, a theme at the very root of Dior. But the best [https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=summary&btnI=lucky summary] was the least ostentatious: Simons' shirtdresses, twisted takes on the white cotton coats of workers corkscrewing around the body in a fascinating surface of complex <br><br>s.
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| So, French fashion is all about surface. Where does that leave Rei Kawakubo and Junya Watanabe, or Hussein Chalayan? The visual is just a fragment of what they offer, thinking clothes for the thinking woman. Jacobs may be in love with �beauty for beauty's sake�, but this trio of talents begs for somethin<br>more.
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| They all had a stellar, cerebral season: Watanabe creating an idiosyncratic ode to the spaghetti Western, Chalayan a paean to the windswept beach, while Kawakubo presented 23 non-outfits that challenged our perceptions of what fashion actually represents. She stated that she had no new ideas, so didn't create c<br><br>es.
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| If only other designers could follow her lead and thin out th<br>herd.
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| The surface of this deep-thinking threesome's clothing was universally impressive, but it's what lies beneath that really interests. Opulent intelligence? Their clothes beg dissection and discussion. To intellectualise a fashion show isn't automatically to over- intellectual<br><br>it.
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| Ultimately, that's what fashion is about. Surface is all well and good. But you have to get someone inside the damn clothes for it to all make<br><br>se.
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| It's ideological, as well as physical. At least, it is when it's really great.
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French luxury goods maker Hermes voiced its frustration at having arch-rival LVMH as its biggest external shareholder at its annual general meeting on Tuesday and once more called on the group to sell its stake.
LVMH, the world's biggest luxury group, which owns 23 percent of Hermes, was fined 8 million euros by the French market watchdog AMF last year for failing to properly disclose its building http://www.pcs-systems.co.uk/Images/celinebag.aspx of a stake before 2010.
Hermes, the 177-year-old maker of Birkin and Kelly handbags which is more than 70 percent family-owned, has been vehemently protesting the presence of LVMH in its shareholder capital ever since it learned of its surprise entry in 2010.
"We do not want shareholders that are rivals," Hermes Chief Executive Axel Dumas told the company's annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday. "We want to preserve our independence."
After the meeting, Dumas told Reuters he was "not aware" whether LVMH would be willing to sell down its stake.
In an interview with Le Figaro newspaper published on Tuesday, Dumas said: "LVMH is totally free to sell its shares and to be honest, would be welcome to do so."
LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, Dior and Celine fashion brands, has repeatedly said it was "satisfied" being Hermes' shareholder and backed its management's strategy.
"But satisfied does not mean friendly," Dumas told Le Figaro. And they (LVMH) are not particularly friendly with our management."
Separately, Dumas said Hermes was considering opening a shop in South Africa in the medium term, preferably in Johannesburg. He said he expected sales in Japan, one of the company's biggest markets where sales rose 6.5 percent at constant exchange rates in 2013, would be similar this year.
Hermes shares - which have lost nearly 2 percent since Jan 1 after climbing nearly 17 percent in 2013 - were barely changed in midday trading at 259.2 euros, valuing the company at 27.4 billion euros.
That makes Hermes the third largest luxury group by market capitalisation behind LVMH and Richemont.
(Reporting by Pascale Denis and Astrid Wendlandt; Editing by Sophie Walker)