Où sont Les Docks?

Les Docks de Paris is a long, narrow, old yet functional warehouse, with historical significance. Built around the turn of the last century, it served as a depot to store goods brought up the Seine by barge, to be transported onwards by road or by train.

The Parisian city authorities organized a contest for a new cultural development programme to revitalize the site. The Musee Galliera, the fashion museum in Paris, is locked for renovation until 2013, but the management has done their outmost to give the large fashion audience other possibilities to enjoy the enormous collection of fashion items belonging to Musee Galliera. Reason enough for me to treck across town to take a look at Les Docks.

My explorer friend and I treated ourselves to two fashion exhibitions: Spanish designer Cristobal Balenciaga and Japan’s legendary designers, Rei Kawakuba for Comme Les Garcons.

Cristóbal Balenciaga’s colossal collection of period costumes:

shining light on the period pieces that informed the expert couturier’s cocktail dresses and evening jackets

The cult label Comme des Garçons’ spring/summer 2012 collection:

sci-fi-style plastic bubbles displaying the theme "White Drama"

inspired by the color white’s significance to major stages in a woman’s life. Birth, communion, marriage, death, and transcendence are all realized through the form of a dress, simultaneously referencing and re-interpreting fashion trends past.