Designer Fatima Lopes gets tropical

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STORY: Portuguese designer Fatima Lopes presented her usual line of bold sexy designs for her ready-to-wear spring/summer 2013 collection at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday (September 25).

Entitled ''Luxurious Paradise,'' Lopes' latest collection was inspired by her hometown of Madeira Island. A soundtrack of birds chirping set a tropical and exotic mood for the catwalk show. The color palette incorporated various shades of blue and green that referenced the Mediterranean Ocean. A special floral print scattered throughout the entire collection reflected Lopes' love for the colorful Anthurium flower, a local blossom of Madeira Island.

''This is a very typical collection, but a lot of me in it. The first time I have as inspiration a place I was from, which is small and beautiful and special,'' Lopes told Reuters backstage prior to the catwalk show.

Slinky halter dresses in body-clinging materials like jersey and silk with audacious keyhole cutouts and high side slits were paired with sky-high color-block platform heels with gold-plated flowers. Models sashaying down the runway also presented asymmetrically-cut barely-there bikinis topped off with shiny iridescent capes with cropped sleeves.

The tropical element of Lopes' collection was even channeled in the models' makeup and hair. Green and yellow eyeliner was paired with slicked-back, side-parted hairstyles resembling a look obtained after a dip in the ocean.

Lopes, whose show kicked off Paris Fashion Week this year, has staged 27 shows in the French capital to date.

Paris hosts the final leg of international Fashion Week hot on the heels of the New York, London and Milan presentations. This season, more than 90 houses will send out women's ready-to-wear looks for spring/summer 2013 in the French capital from September 28 through October 3.