Antwerp-based Austrian designer Florentina Leitner channeled her compatriot Marie Antoinette in her typical playful way. “She, like me, came from Austria to Paris,” she said backstage before the show. “I’ve always liked the Sofia Coppola movie about her and that whole aesthetic.”
Her sugary silhouettes were super-charged for 21st century queens in a collection like cotton candy at the fairground for girls who want to dress up but who don’t take themselves too seriously. Her Baroque references rubbed shoulders with sporty sweatshirt dresses printed with motifs of poodles, the pink ribbons that fluttered across much of the collection adorning their fur in 3D.
A translucent pink corset was styled over a tailored black coat, while poplin shirts and dresses with frilled shoulders were worn, for example, with playful tricorne hats. Floral appliqués featured heavily as adornments, either padded and sculpted or laser-cut and riveted on. Fake fur in a murky shade of lilac was another accent that shouted opulence with a whimsical twist. Translucent jacquard socks highlighted the quirky feel, worn with a hybrid between a sneaker and a bejeweled slipper created in collaboration with Arc’teryx.
She did full mid-length skirts in a number of ways, as on a suit in animal print sequins in lime green and white, the jacket with a deep scoop neckline echoing period gowns. A handkerchief-hemmed jersey dress was printed with jewelry motifs in one of the more contemporary silhouettes, and the designer incorporated denim into the lineup for the first time, working it as boxy jeans with a giant bow on one rear pocket, for instance.
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