This was quite predictable. When the news first came out that the fashion house of Ungaro was going to be working with Lindsay Lohan, the fashion world and media exploded with negative backlash. The Ungaro designer quit and everyone sharpened their knives, sorry keyboards for the fashion show.

Well it came and it went. Was it great? NO, it was just average. But was it as horrible as the critics were predicting? It wasn’t high fashion, but then again take a look at what the established designers are putting out this season.Dsquared, Balmain, Gaultier and even Marc Jacobs all showed ‘out there’ collections. Sure the colors of hot pink and orange were cringe worthy and the pasties ( bad, bad choice) and the harem pants and, and, and..but the form fitting mini dresses, the sleeveless sheaths, the sequins garments were not that bad and NOT all that different from what other designers had shown .

Yet according to the media, fashion buyers and the fashion establishement are all crying “Quelle Horreur”.  The CEO of Ungaro admits to NYTimes that he hired Lohan for the publicity :

“Mounir Moufarrige, the new chief executive of Ungaro, said his intention was to give the aging brand the equivalent of “electric shock treatment.” But based on the reaction to the collection that was shown here at the Louvre, the first designed by Estrella Archs with Ms. Lohan’s advice, he achieved more than that: Editors and buyers who were present said it was they who were shocked.”

Ungaro is indeed getting a lot more attention than it would have ever received otherwise. Moufarrige was also was the one to hire Stella McCartney in 1997 and that ruffled the establishement’s feathers as well in the meantime she has become a great designer in her own right. In fact it was Stella who re-started the boyfriend jacket craze last season.

“While he acknowledged that his main goal in hiring Ms. Lohan was to generate publicity, he said he also believes she will excite consumers. He said he was actually surprised the criticism had not been even more negative.

“The market for luxury goods has been so bad, he said, that hiring a traditional designer would not make enough of a difference to get people into his stores. With retailers cutting their orders by 30 percent or more this year, there was little chance that Ungaro could survive without getting more attention. He said he did not believe that Ms. Lohan’s history of well-publicized personal problems would get in the way of her job at Ungaro or have a detrimental impact on the brand.

At that moment, his cell phone rang. It was a security guard telling him that Ms. Lohan and her sister, Ali, had gone downstairs into the store to try on some clothes. The store, in fact, was now mobbed ”

We tend to agree that Lindsay Lohan may not have been the right choice for Ungaro in particular, she could be better for a more younger edgier brand, but it would be quite the joke on “tout le fashion monde” if this did indeed work and Ungaro would become successful because of this collaboration. Talk about turning the establishment on it’s head!

In any case you can decide for yourself.

7 Comments

Tags: fashion designer, fashion show, fashion trends, Lindsay Lohan, paris fashion week, ungaro fashion house

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 11:29 am and is filed under Fashion News, Fashion Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.