Versace kicks off Paris couture week in style

PARIS (AP) — Actress Michelle Rodriguez and model Naomi Campbell joined celebrity attendees Sunday at the start of Paris’ fall-winter 2015-16 haute couture week — that headlined with Versace. Here are the highlights, including Adeline Andre and Ulyana Sergeenko:

VERSACE HITS HIGH POINT

Donatella Versace delivered her strongest show yet for her couture line since its 2012 relaunch, in a fun and frothy collection that mirrored the exuberance of the late ’70s and the architecture of Art Nouveau.

The models, who wore turn-of-the-century flower crowns, sported voluminous flared silk sleeves alongside floaty skirts with long proportions. Wrought-iron bodices, meanwhile, added a touch of aggression to the feminine designs and harked back to the days of late 19th century decorative arts, as seen in the architecture of Paris’ metro and its many garden gates.

Colors were subtle and feminine — dove gray, soft apple green, fuchsia, pinks, and flashes of tangerine.

This collection felt like a mature Donatella — who’s found her feet. And one confident enough to go back to codes more associated with her late brother, Gianni, like one fabulous black strapped, figure-hugging lace gown that perfectly hit the heydays of the ’90s.

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ULYANA SERGEENKO’S GOES HOME FOR ON-CALENDAR DEBUT

For Russian designer Ulyana Sergeenko’s on-calendar couture debut in Paris, she did away with the design exuberance for which the socialite-cum-designer is reputed.

In its place was a subtler show that channeled the clothes — she said — that might be found in an eclectic “Soviet Communal Apartment” apartment following the 1917 revolution.

It was a moment, so said the program notes, when spacious housing was taken away from wealthy citizens, forcing them to co-habit with other families and individuals from all walks of life.

The translation into clothes meant decorative details, pleated sections in the skirts that looked like mini-curtains, a square lamp-shaped gown, and Christmas decor and confetti used as appliques on loosely-fitting dresses.

Though the designs, at times, felt contrived — there was some beautiful play in proportion, like a long textured coat with exaggerated rolled-up sleeves.

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NATALIA VODIANOVA TALKS UP HER FELLOW RUSSIAN FRIEND

Russian ubermodel Natalia Vodianova is good friends with Sergeenko, and used her front row position at the couture show, which overlooked the Eiffel Tower — for vocal support.

“It’s a brand that has an incredible potential. … I actually have a big passion for craftsmanship and I think that Ulyana is an incredible force behind Russian craftsmanship,” she said.

“She’s gathering young and old women from all over Russia in her atelier in Moscow. She now has over 100 full-time people employed in embroidering, carving and doing beading and all kinds of work that goes into her collection,” Vodianova said, adding that “Ulyana is the reason that all women in Moscow dress like princesses.”

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KENZO PREMIERES MOVIE

Fashion film is a growing genre — and in the last few years directors and fashion houses have started to team up regularly to co-produce slick and highly stylized shorts.

Kenzo is on the bandwagon now, and premiered a new film “Here Now” by director Gregg Araki for the July 4 weekend — that was based on the universe of his acclaimed 1997 feature “Nowhere.”

The 10-minute work is set in a California diner — and tells the enigmatic story of two couples, who have contrasting relationships.

The actors — Grace Victoria Cox, Avan Jogia, and Jacob Arist — are clad in Kenzo’s fall-winter 2015 designs, and the film is mainly a showcase for the fashion house.

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ADELINE ANDRE PARES IT DOWN

Classical simplicity was showcased at the small-but-beautifully-formed fall-winter show from Parisian couturier Adeline Andre.

Long column silhouettes in pure fabrics hung from the shoulders — with unstructured, feminine fluidity.

Flashes of burnt sienna and yellow added the zest to a menu of sanitized, monochrome color — such as a black hooded coat on a model with ruby red lips and a whitened face that conjured up an image of a rich, soulful widow.

But the main point of this show was its experimentation with form. The best look was a perfectly cut black trapeze silhouette coat, with curved angular sleeves that was at once voluminous and complimentary to the model’s slender form.

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Thomas Adamson can be followed at Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP.

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