From Iris van Herpen, Clouds at Your Feet

PARIS — Iris van Herpen is a Dutch designer whose otherworldly fashion creations utilize technology to an extent seldom seen outside of a laboratory. For her latest couture collection, “Shift Souls,” unveiled in Paris this week, influences included the “Harmonia Macrocosmica,” a 17th-century star atlas, the fluidity of identity change and the possibility of engineered…

The Fish You Really Should Be Cooking

There are certain recipes that are immediately appealing, beloved by most and attainable by all. They tend to be easy, comforting, delicious-looking no-brainers that don’t require much persuading for people to make them. Think giant bowls of gloriously cheesy pasta. Then there are the recipes that may not immediately inspire because they may seem unfamiliar or…

Fashion Review: Walking the Fashion High Wire

PARIS — Out the women came, carrying one another on their backs. Up the women went, hoisted by each other’s hands. Over their bodies curved, all different sizes and strengths. Maria Grazia Chiuri had hired the all-female acrobatic troupe Mimbre for her Dior show, and they stacked themselves into various innovative kinds of human pyramids…

The Fix: Beyond the Built-in Bookcase

Like a bespoke suit tailored to flatter your body, custom-made built-ins can enhance the appearance of a home — elevating the design, offering creative solutions to everyday problems and disguising unsightly features like exposed pipes or air ducts. “If you do it right, the built-in becomes a hybrid of a work of art and a…

Celine’s New Wave Man

PARIS — The kids will be all right. Hedi Slimane will see to that. The designer who almost single-handedly altered the shape of men’s wear when, in the early years of the century, he introduced the skinny suit at Dior Homme and who afterward rescued Saint Laurent from the slag heap of market irrelevance with…

The Treasure Behind the Wall

Alex Bolen, the chief executive of Oscar de la Renta, planned to have his new store in Paris open around this week, just in time for the couture shows. He planned to have a presence in the city even if he didn’t have a show. He had it all figured out. Then, last summer, in…