Top fashion designers set out Sunday to prove the saying that a stylish woman can even look good in a bin bag.
Belgian husband and wife team Filip Arickx and An Vandevorst turned black plastic bin liners and dry cleaning sheaths into skirts and elaborate embroidered ball gowns in their debut Paris haute couture show.
Haute couture is the very pinnacle of the fashion world, with only an elite band of designers allowed to show their luxurious handmade creations in the French capital, some of which cost tens of thousands of euros.
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The pair - collectively called A.F. Vandevorst - set out to challenge that aesthetic with a punkish cavalier show which also featured rubbish bag veils.
A model presents a hat made out of a plastic bag and a handbag, by A.F. Vandevorst, in Paris on Sunday. Photo: AFP
Belgian fashion designers An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx acknowledge audience applause after the presentation of the A.F. Vandevorst Haute Couture show in Paris on Sunday. Photo: AP
Rather than demure debutantes in puff balls of taffeta and silk, some of their models had the air of runaway nightclubbing nuns.
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Others wore dashing hussar jackets and trousers matched with thigh-high boots and skin-tight PVC trousers.
An Vandevorst said the show was an ode to the joy of dressing up with anything you can find to hand.
