Elie Saab banishes gray skies, channels '70s in Paris

Elie Saab and Vivienne Westwood were among designers featured at Paris Fashion Week Saturday, with organizers on heightened alert as French yellow vests protesters mobilized in Paris for a 16th straight weekend. Marches are planned not far from show venues near the Arc de Triomphe.

Some highlights of the fall and winter ready-to-wear shows:

A RELATIVELY QUIET SATURDAY

A model wears a creation as part of the Elie Saab ready to wear Fall-Winter 2019-2020 collection, that was presented in Paris, Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP PhotoMichel Euler)

Many guests invited to the Elie Saab show were held up by snaking traffic caused by the yellow vest demonstrations in Paris. But the display, held a short distance from the Arc de Triomphe at the exclusive Hotel Salomon de Rothschild, started on time and without incident.

Paris' Fashion Federation has held top level meetings with police to assess the threat of any potential disruption to shows, especially because luxury Parisian boutiques were smashed in previous marches. No major incident has yet occurred.

Some guests gasped as shouts erupted on the street ahead of the show — but the fracas, it transpired, came from excited fans of VIP attendees who included American socialite Olivia Palermo.

A model wears a creation as part of the Elie Saab ready to wear Fall-Winter 2019-2020 collection, that was presented in Paris, Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP PhotoMichel Euler)

This is the second time Paris Fashion Week has coincided with the protests. Activists argue the French political system is stacked in favor of the elite and big businesses.

ELIE SAAB'S 70s

An infectious, retro soundtrack had fashion editors smiling as their tapped their feet at Elie Saab's fun collection that channeled this season's top trend: The '70s.

A model wears a creation as part of the Elie Saab ready to wear Fall-Winter 2019-2020 collection, that was presented in Paris, Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP PhotoMichel Euler)

Bright lighting banished any gray mood caused by the French capital's overcast weather and angry demonstrations.

It illuminated a typically-feminine array of color-rich gowns.

Charlie's Angels-style jabot collars and high necks led the eye down to tight-fitting gowns with floppy ruffles across the bust or down the side. Later, sparkly disco gowns dazzled.

A model wears a creation as part of the Elie Saab ready to wear Fall-Winter 2019-2020 collection, that was presented in Paris, Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP PhotoMichel Euler)

Thigh-high leather boots — another big Paris trend — were delivered in eye-popping colors such as vivid blue, carmine red and cadmium green. They matched the hues of the gowns in a "total look" effect.

The collection, the house said, was filled with "a little bit of romance and a whole lot of love." That mantra translated as an overly busy heart print on skirts and gowns that diverged from the retro musing and fared less well.

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD'S CONTRADICTIONS

A model wears a creation as part of the Elie Saab ready to wear Fall-Winter 2019-2020 collection, that was presented in Paris, Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP PhotoMichel Euler)

Silken sea-green blazers, corseted gowns, patchwork jeans with zippers in random locations and pants in dalmatian print: That was just the front row.

As a true "identity brand," Vivienne Westwood's shows typically attract guests dressed as vibrantly as the runway models.

On the catwalk, designer Andreas Kronthaler put out a highly accomplished collection of ensembles defined by anachronism and contradiction.

A model wears a creation as part of the Westwood ready to wear Fall-Winter 2019-2020 collection, that was presented in Paris, Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP PhotoThibault Camus)

Punk wigs mixed with loose medieval-style gowns, historic gathered skirts, sneakers, red leggings and check pants. Punk was a key touchstone of Westwood, Kronthaler's wife and design partner, from whom he took over some years ago.

Contrasts in material, color and pattern were key to the typically eclectic style formula.

One look married 80s disco queen with a Medici princess, with a pastel silver lame gown descending over a pant-skirt ensemble in dark sienna that curved round in a Renaissance style.

A model wears a creation as part of the Elie Saab ready to wear Fall-Winter 2019-2020 collection, that was presented in Paris, Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP PhotoMichel Euler)

LVMH PRIZE

Shortlisted designers from 15 countries have gathered at the headquarters of luxury goods giant LVMH for the annual LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers, launched in 2014.

The conglomerate's CEO, Bernard Arnault, is Europe's richest man. His company has made a point of using its resources and influence to support upcoming artists and designers from all over the world.

A model wears a creation as part of the Elie Saab ready to wear Fall-Winter 2019-2020 collection, that was presented in Paris, Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP PhotoMichel Euler)

The panel of judges includes models Naomi Campbell and Natalia Vodianova.

On Friday evening, this year's shortlisted designers gathered in Paris at the invitation of Arnault's daughter, Delphine Arnault.

They included Anrealage by Tokyo-based designer Kunihiko Morinaga, and Bode's American designer Emily Adams Bode. The winner, who will receive a 300,000-euro grant, will be announced in June.

Thomas Adamson can be followed at Twitter.com/ThomasAdamson_K

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Former Cypriot President George Vassiliou, a successful businessman who helped to energize his divided island's economy and set it on the road to European Union membership, has died. He was 94.

Vassiliou died Wednesday after being hospitalized on Jan. 6 for a respiratory infection. Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides praised Vassiliou as a leader who became synonymous with the country's economic prosperity, social progress and push toward modernization.

“Cyprus has lost a universal citizen who broadened our homeland's international imprint,” Christodoulides said in a written statement.

His wife Androulla, a lawyer who twice served as a European commissioner, posted on X in the early hours Wednesday that her companion of 59 years “slipped away quietly in our arms” in hospital.

“It's difficult to say farewell to a man who was a superb husband and father, a man full of kindness and love for the country and its people,” she wrote.

When he became president in 1988, Vassiliou lifted hopes that a peace deal with the island's breakaway Turkish Cypriots was possible after more than a decade of off-again, on-again talks. He swiftly relaunched stalled reunification negotiations with Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, but they ended at an impasse that continues today.

Cyprus was split into an internationally recognized Greek-speaking south and a Turkish-speaking north in 1974, when Turkey invaded the island after a coup aimed at uniting it with Greece. A Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence nine years later was recognized only by Turkey.

During an interview in 1989, one year into his five-year term as president, Vassiliou said: "The only dangerous thing for the Cyprus issue is to remain ... in a vacuum, forgotten and with no one taking any interest."

But Vassiliou succeeded on many other fronts, using his skills as a successful entrepreneur to modernize and expand his county’s economy, even though he had been raised by parents who were pro-communist.

Vassiliou was born in Cyprus in 1931 to two doctors who were activists and volunteered their services to the communist forces during the civil war that engulfed Greece in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

With the defeat of the communists in Greece in 1949, the Vassiliou family moved to Hungary and later Uzbekistan.

George Vassiliou initially studied medicine in Geneva and Vienna, but he later switched to economics, earning a doctorate from the University of Economics in Budapest.

After a brief stint doing marketing in London, Vassiliou returned to Cyprus in 1962, and he began a successful business career that made him a millionaire. He founded the Middle East Market Research Bureau, a consultancy business that grew to have offices in 30 countries in the Middle East, South Africa, eastern and central Europe.

In 1987, Vassilou was elected president of Cyprus as an independent entrepreneur who also was supported by the island's powerful communist party AKEL, which his father had one been a prominent member of.

Vassiliou bucked the staid political culture of the time by making the presidency more accessible to the public and visiting government offices and schools. That prompted some criticism that he was turning the presidency into a marketing pulpit.

"I consider it the president’s obligation to come in contact with the civil service," Vassiliou told Greek state TV. "I call this communication with youth. Some call it marketing. ... I call it the proper execution of the president's mission."

He also pushed through key reforms, including imposing a sales tax while slashing income taxes, streamlining a cumbersome civil service, establishing the first Cyprus university, and abolishing a state monopoly in electronic media. To make sure the world better understood the Cyprus peace process, he widely expanded a network of press offices at Cypriot diplomatic missions.

Through his tenure, the island's per capita gross domestic product almost doubled, culminating in possibly his most notable achievement as president — applying for full membership to the European Union, a goal achieved 13 years later.

Vassiliou lost the presidency in 1993 to Glafcos Clerides, who appointed his rival as Cyprus' chief negotiator with the EU in 1998. A decade later, Vassiliou headed a Greek Cypriot team negotiating EU matters during reunification talks. He remained politically active, founding a party of his own and being elected to the Cypriot legislature in 1996.

He authored several books on EU issues and Cypriot politics; was a member of several international bodies, including the Shimon Peres Institute of Peace; and received honors and decorations from countries such as France, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Egypt.

Apart from his wife, Vassiliou is also survived by two daughters and a son.

FILE -Democratic Presidential Candidate Bill Clinton, left, meets with President George Vassiliou of Cyprus at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, Aug. 9, 1992. (AP Photo/Mario Cabrera, File)

FILE -Cyprus President George Vassiliou, left, smiles as his son Evelthon, 17, is introduced to the daughter of Massachusetts Governor and Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis, Kara, 19, at the Statehouse in Boston on Aug. 3, 1988 as Dukakis, second from right looks on, during a visit by the Cyprus President to Boston. (AP Photo/Carol Francavilla, File)