Paris Fashion Week lifts off with first show at Eiffel Tower

Portuguese designer Fatima Lopes elevated the start of Paris Fashion Week with a show inside the French capitals most iconic landmark, the Eiffel Tower, on Tuesday.With a collection entitled Levitation, the designer used bright colours like turquoise blue, sea green and orange to lift the spirits of the gloom of the global economic downturn. She used light fabrics like mousseline in nude colours and paired them with black to give the clothes a weightless but elegant feel.Lopes also used PVC in her collection, on bathing suits in candy stipes of red and pink, to strapless daydresses in blue and neon green.Accessories were marked by clutch bags that matched gowns and towering nude heels, which were secured together by a bar.Lopes talked about making one of her childhood fantasies come true. My dream is to make a fashion show at the Eiffel Tower. Its the 26th show in Paris, its the opening, and the theme of the collection was levitation, so I wanted something very high and really Eiffel Tower is top, she told Reuters Television.She also touched on the energetic focus of her collection. She admitted that she was also worried about the global economic crisis but said the fashion show must go on.Paris Fashion Week will see shows by some of the worlds biggest labels including Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent, with all eyes focusing on Christian Dior, to see whether U.S. designer Marc Jacobs will take over design duties from John Galliano, who was sacked in February over anti-Semetic rants.