Pre-Fall 2012: Alexis Mabille Paints the Town Red (and Blue and Yellow...)

[All images via Fashionising].

This really was a lesson in how to do couture. Alexis Mabille settled for nothing short of opulence when these models walked at the Pre-Fall 2012 show in Paris. I love it when the designer doesn't just use models in a pedestrian or obvious way; when they really do become transformed like this, we begin to see more of the edginess of photoshoots coming across on what can often seem like an overly sterile and constricted atmosphere on the catwalk. This really was a statement that fashion can be fun and frivolous and utterly odd, without having to apologise to anyone.

What this show also reminds me of is that old saying about the Ford Model T car - "You can have it in any colour you like, so long as it's black,". The notion that we should all be able to fit into a neat little mass-produced box, with our identikit products and our one-size-fits-all plans is really quite impossible, and the pure use of colour on the Alexis Mabille catwalk really shows how a certain tone or shade can evoke different personalities or likes and dislikes in us all. The deep red reminded me of Viktor and Rolf dolls, whilst the blue and aqua made me think of Vladimir Tretchikoff's kitsch paintings of ladies with blue-ish tinted skin. I found myself wondering which colour I'd wear and whether the colour of a dress would say something about me, a bit like when you look into colour therapy and discover that your love of yellow means that you are full of energy, whereas it used to be associated with bile and sickliness (you get the idea - everything means something).

The big questions are: which colour would you be? Could you walk with one of those headpieces resting on you? And would you ever colour-block all over, unless you were at a fancy dress party dressed as a tube of Cobalt Blue paint? Okay, so the last one might just be me, but I made a mean fancy dresser.