Sonia Rykiel pour H&M - Paris, December 1st, 2009 - by Patrizia Molechino, The Oracle of Fashion

A very special party was held in Paris at the Grand Palais on December 1st to launch the Sonia Rykiel lingerie collection for H&M.  Around two thousand guests were invited to see a mini-carnival performance, with floats transporting beautiful girls clad in sexy, feminine underwear - easily recognizable as Sonia Rykiel girls - with long, frizzy hair, French berets worn sideways, and lots of stripes.  Stripes as such are not a novelty, but Sonia Rykiel's stripes, well, somehow they are not quite the same as others...  It was joyful and fun-like, with the guests seated under an illuminated blue Eiffel Tower watching the floats emerge from a mini Arc de Triomphe, with a Parisian funfair as backdrop, a surreal theme-park for adults or fantasy world for grown-ups, if you prefer.  This was a very Parisian show, epitomizing the brilliance of the city and of the very Parisian Sonya Rykiel...the guests were both charmed and mesmerized.

The collection is now available from 1,500 stores around the world and there will also be a knitwear range in 200 stores worldwide on February 20, 2010.  It's great lingerie, see the pink satins, so very 1940s in design and sexy in a non-banal way, or the black sets for a more modern concept of elegant seduction.

Eva Herzigova and Nadja Auermann    Jean Paul Gaultier/Nathalie Rykiel     Jean Paul Gaultier/Sonia Rykiel


In the words of Jean Paul Gaultier "Sonia Rykiel is a revolution in fashion.  She makes sexy clothes, but clothes that are very modern, cool and feminine.  She is super-clever, super-talented and I have a big, big admiration for her".  As I am sure we all have...










Photographs: www.image.net by Getty Images