Typography I Final: Coffee Table Book by Halley Husted

SPR ING COUT URE 1

SPRING COUTURE 2016

A collection of the best shows Januaray 24-27 in Paris, France Halley Husted

Images and text courtesey of Vogue.com and their recap of Spring 2016 Couture in Paris

TABLE OF CONTENTS Ronald Van Der Kemp 7 Givenchy

Valentino

Zuhair Murad

Ulyana Sergeenko

Maison Margiela

Elie Saab

Christian Dior

Atelier Versace

Chanel

18 5

6 6

RONALD VAN DER KEMP

WHEN Ronald van der Kemp tells you how he sources

his materials, he gives the impression of a high-end scavenger; a bolt of toile de jouy collected here, some plissé scraps found there. Someone’s gold leather trash becomes his boot-cut trouser treasure. That the Amsterdam-based designer and fashion veteran presented a collection for the third time during the haute couture calendar is telling. As a vampish eel-skin pencil skirt and feathered vest will attest, his designs are a world away from the Etsy breed of upcycling. He calls his eponymous label “demi-couture” because he applies artisanal techniques to clothes that, by nature of a finite supply of materials, are always limited edition. Moreover, a draped check jacket, a seductively tailored coatdress with ceramic buttons, and a jacket in vintage tapisserie gilded with antique gold guipure lace all looked très couture. The laced Perfecto in collaged alligator, python, lambskin, goat hair, and crocodile—all reclaimed, lest you forget—was pure Furiosa. Indeed, Van der Kemp mined a darker, more decadent vibe with this collection—he cited Mapplethorpe’s eroticism; we detected a whiff of Saint Laurent—yet he has a knack for the casual chic niche. The lattice-cutout tartan overlaid onto denim showed how two humble fabrics can add up to haute, and the black overdyed flag jeans had French fashion editor written all over them. Apparently, a simple black shrug punctuated with feathers is destined for Amanda Harlech. And when Net-a-Porter debuts a capsule collection of RVDK next month, we imagine that similarly wearable pieces will go fast. For someone who participates in an industry so accustomed to waste, his resourcefulness is laudable; if leather isn’t consistently usable, he turns smaller strips into a modified bandage dress. On the flip side, the aforementioned toile de jouy might have been used in moderation. Some creations came across as too much look, which might be a function of molto styling— beware more than one hero piece—or else, understandable overenthusiasm. Ultimately, he’s onto something good.

GIVE NCHY NOW HERE’S A PECULIAR THING: According to one of the arcane regulations of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the French governing body, in order to qualify as haute couture, a collection must contain 50 handmade outfits, for both day and night. Fifty! To ordinary eyes—which typically start to glaze over after about six looks, these days—the 12 womenswear silhouettes Riccardo Tisci slipped into the Givenchy menswear runway show were enough to transmit his “couture” statement. Or at least, they were, when he followed up with an evocative video, showing the clothes in movement, intercut with close-ups of the glittering lines of minute crystal on tulle, the pentagon-shaped patchworks of snakeskin and velvet, the marrying of lace and leather, the rivets and the rivulets of bugle beading. Tisci’s couture was the first to introduce the sheer nude dress to fashion—an idea that, against all probabilities, proved prophetic as eventwear. There’s another black lace example as a reminder here. What looks newer, though, is the way he nailed the feeling for cloaks, matching them to the fabric of long dresses—not so much as a cover-up or coat substitute, but as a complete look. Let’s hope this one catches on, too.

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SPEAKING TO Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli is always like hearing an Italian art history lesson in stereo. In one ear, she is talking about Mariano Fortuny, his Delphos dress, and “aged” velvet, and in the other, he’s speaking about Isadora Duncan and Loie Fuller and their “expressionist dancing.” All of this exotic early-20th-century Venetian-pagan romanticism was sewn lightly into the Valentino Haute Couture collection and trailed around by barefoot nymphs with gold metal serpents writhing in their tendriled tresses. There’s something so recognizable about a Valentino dress today. It’s almost invariably floor-length (although there’s the odd short one, too) and seemingly demure, though plenty of gauzy, sparkle-sprinkled transparency and more than a few plunging Grecian necklines come into it. But really, it’s the incredible things these designers and their Roman workforce can do with fabric that makes each dress a paradox of age-old hand-wrought elaborateness and youthful simplicity. The designers’ treatment of velvet alone could fill a chapter. Here it came pleated, painted, and patinated, and at one point, woven and knotted into a web. Then the colors: dark mossy green, deep burgundy, absinthe yellow. The pièce de la résistance was in green velvet brocade, worn by a redheaded girl—it had a train, and a sheer bodice on which the pattern of the brocade had been cut out and reappliquéd. It was one of those completely stunning dresses that will lodge in the memory of haute couture highs. Backstage, one of the things the designers were talking about was striving for timelessness. That involves a fashion contradiction in terms: Every season has to be different, yet for a house to make a long-term impression, it needs to stay the same. At Valentino, they have all that happening, and this season there were some dresses that made time stand still.

PARIS, JANUARY 27, 2016 SPRING 2016 COUTURE COLLECTION

VALE NTINO

ZUHAIR MURAD LAST SEASON, Zuhair Murad took a voyage through the cosmos. Now, he’s back on Earth and traveling through the past, revisiting the panier skirts that were in favor under Elizabeth I. “I love the possibilities of corsets. You could say I wanted to put women in a gilded cage,” the designer offered backstage before the show, meaning it in the strictly figurative way. The Zuhair Murad woman—and the room was full of them—won’t have any second thoughts about following his lead. Building on an architecture of crinolined curves veiled with illusion tulle, the designer went to town showering his dresses with “precious tattoos” like ivy and creeping florals made of embroidery, many kinds of lace, organza, satin, sequins, and silver beads. A cascade of 3-D floral embroideries—each petal sewn on individually—poured over dresses short and long, their tendrils spreading over the latticework of the underlying corsetry. Although he said he wasn’t thinking red carpet, one could easily picture some of these dresses, like a short one with coral and red-petaled flowers, or a long one in watercolor hues of pale gray green and pink, on a rising starlet. Elsewhere, the designer might have benefitted from a stiffer edit, notably when it came to the pantsuits and the coral-, mauve-, and anise-color series. But if it was a fairy-tale effect he was after, Murad achieved that goal. On the subject of fairy-tale endings, the lavishly embroidered bridal gown with 13-foot train and matching veil recalled that Murad does a seriously brisk business in wedding attire: His ateliers turn out five or six gowns per month. This one, for example, required two shifts of 30 embroiderers each one solid month to complete. “This is not for an ordinary wedding,” the designer conceded. “It’s more like A Thousand and One Nights.” And then some.

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ULYANA SERGEENKO EVERY SEASON with Ulyana Sergeenko it’s a new story about her native Russia. Her Spring couture collection marries two eras: the 1980s, just before the fall of Communism, and the turn of the 20th century, just before the Russian revolution. Madonna and Boy George were on Sergeenko’s mood boards, as was the Russian noble Nikolay Yusupov, whose eccentricities reportedly included stocking a pond on his manor with fish pierced with gold earrings. Sergeenko reproduced one of those fishes as a scaly minaudière, hoop earrings and all. This was a collection rife with such excesses. Big ’80s volume in the leg-of-mutton sleeves. A sugary Jordan almond color palette. Stephen Jones–designed newsboy caps à la Madge. It had a freewheeling spirit that you could chalk up to the fact that Sergeenko and her right-hand man, Frol Burimskiy, having bought out their former investor, are now bankrolling the collection themselves. There’s a certain liberty in that. Will it prove seductive to Sergeenko’s clients? It won’t hurt that ’80s silhouettes are becoming a thing in the wake of J.W.Anderson’s last two collections. And it could also work in her favor that Soviet-era Russia is trending elsewhere in fashion. (Also, Russian-born Gosha Rubchinskiy is a hot young thing in menswear; Vetements’s Demna Gvasalia hails from Georgia.) To this reviewer’s eye, though, the more outré shapes came off costumey (they look just as silly to me at JWA, for the record). The molded leather corsets, on the other hand, were beautifully made, and it was easy to imagine them becoming a hit for the brand. In the end, the most charming pieces here were the ones that showcased the work of Russia’s own petites mains class. This season that was a pair of handmade lace slip dresses of such laborious workmanship they reportedly took five months each to make.

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FASHION is a mad, mad, absolutely mad world. And the real world outside has gone even more incredibly insane. So there was something cathartic about watching as bonkers a show as the one John Galliano put on for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal collection—a place where he can be free to channel nonsensicalness and throw fabric around to his heart’s content. Lamé! Glitter! Brocade! Surreal makeup! After a few minutes, you just surrendered, put the anxious rational mind on hold, and let it sweep you along in a delightful way. Galliano doesn’t appear at his shows or give interviews before or after these days, so you had to use your own eyes to figure out what he was up to. Since he started out with cream-color safari jackets, skirts, and tops with fragments of more luxe couture fabrics draped across them, the references to toiles and studio works-in-progress were quickly signaled. That was an important move, as it subliminally connected Galliano with Martin Margiela himself, whose label was based on questioning the way fashion is made—and making surreal observations, puns, and jokes about it. Since he joined the house, a certain tension has hovered around the issue of how Galliano would mesh with Margiela’s worldview, but with this show, it lifted. The man in charge now has a different sensibility, but it all begins, spontaneously, by looking at a mannequin in a studio and experimenting with all manner of tryouts. Rush to the end of the show and you’ll see how that led him to great, bunched-up loops and swathes of couture fabric amalgamated with MA-1 jackets—a funny mating of high concept with street. Further back, though, there were really lovely moments: a soft black lamé jacket with velvet pockets, a glittery sliver streak of a midi dress, a cascade of fan pleating gushing down the front of a belted ivory trenchcoat. Galliano absolutely knows what he’s doing when it comes to cutting and manipulating fabric—he is an old hand. But part of the reason this show felt so light and uplifting is that it didn’t seem that he was covering his old ground, but stepping lightly and playfully into new territory—with, it must be mentioned, a whole collection of brilliant wedge-cum-high-heeled boots that Maison Margiela ought to make available right away.

MAISON MARGIELA

ELIE SAAB “ENTER INDIA,” Elie Saab’s program proclaimed. The muse of his new couture collection, the notes went on to explain, was a turn-of-the-last-century Englishwoman on a trip to the subcontinent. “India is her backdrop and her inspiration for a new blend of formalism and ease, opulence and elementary lines.” That read like a real departure for the designer, who tends to prefer the reassurance of the familiar. But lately the Beirut-based Saab has been focused on change. It began in earnest with his Pre-Fall lineup, which featured sequined Wellies and studded creepers, and generally exuded a more youthful attitude. Here, his bid for hipness manifested itself most obviously in lace-up combat boots, mini backpacks, and sturdy-looking belt bags—all in metallic leather. They were unlikely sightings at haute couture, where accessories tend to be of the more precious variety. But subtler propositions, like the elevated, above-the-ankle hems on a few beaded lace dresses, were a delightful surprise. They looked fresh with lug-soled sandals. In general, the collection was a call and response between Edwardian silhouettes, which are not such a great leap chez Saab, and Indian pieces, which are. So you’d have a high-neck Edwardian-style dress followed by a cropped jacket with a Nehru collar and softly tailored pants trailing a split train, or a gown with a built-in beaded capelet, and coming up right behind it, a thigh-length number with a sari-like sash thrown over one shoulder. Some really different vibes seeped in late in the show when a model rolled out in full rock-star regalia: jeweled pants stuffed into boots, a crystalline camisole, and a matching coat that reached to the ground. The Beatles in India, maybe? Mr. Saab, book that look a flight to the Grammys.

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CHRISTIAN DIOR EVERYTHING WAS AS USUAL at the Christian Dior Haute Couture show: the same venue, the sense of occasion that this storied house of fashion commands. The only difference, as the world well knows, is that it is currently operating without a creative director. Instead, it was a young team, which looked to be in their 20s and 30s, that ran out to take their bows at the end of the show. Collectives are very à la mode in Paris now (the friends behind Vetements being the prime example), but it’s fair to say that six months ago, this crew never imagined they’d be out front, taking the credit for a grand show in a vast mirrored marquee in the gardens of the Musée Rodin. Nor did Dior’s management, which is now dealing with the interim between the surprise resignations of Raf Simons and Pieter Mulier, who was the creative director’s full-time number two in-house. A Dior press representative names Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux as the heads of studio who stepped up to fill the void. They were smiling as they made a brief appearance before running off, and they deserved to feel happy with the job they’d done—primarily of continuing the feeling that Dior has to belong to a younger, modern world. Simons began that mission, of course. In the hands of a more junior group, it became softer, more casual than their former boss’s theoretical approach—a sensibility patchworked through a visual prism belonging to people who’ve grown up with Prada, Marni, Céline, and Marc Jacobs. That’s not to say that they disrespected Dior house codes. While dispensing with corseted structure, they honored waist emphasis with fit-and-flare silhouettes, short sparkly dresses, and a couple of plain bell-shaped evening midis with asymmetric necklines fastened with bows in the back. The white “Bar” jacket, with narrow sleeves, flounced cuffs, and a sprinkling of jeweled lilies of the valley, worn over a black pencil skirt, slit at one side and fanning out as the model walked, read as the nearest thing to “couture” this collection attained. What it skipped was a sense of grandeur or build-up. There was no ball gown finale to answer the hanging question as to what Jennifer Lawrence might wear to the Academy Awards—though that’s usually arranged as a bespoke off-runway matter anyway.

PARIS, JANUARY 25, 2016 SPRING 2016 COUTURE COLLECTION

GLORIFICATION OF EVERY CURVE of a woman’s body through clothing—if there’s one house that owns that idea, it’s Versace. Under Donatella Versace’s reign, the label has recently taken a feminist slant, angling away from the notion of woman as rock-star arm candy and nightclub predator. Versace’s Fall ready-to-wear was a refreshing tour de force in glam urban militaria, but how to follow that in couture? The Rio Olympics are coming up in August, so maybe that’s what sent Donatella in the direction of female power through athleticism—the body used to achieve personal goals that aren’t to do with man-catching sexuality. Well, that’s what the soundtrack pointed us toward, anyway: a narrative by Violet, speaking out about “feminine strength to overcome obstacles.” Nonetheless, this Versace Altelier collection was a full-on old-school display of cutaway, plunge, curve, slash, and skin display. After an opener of optic white tailoring and taut ski pants, it was on with the real business: feats of dressmaking engineering involving asymmetrical patchworked geometries, suspension by Swarovski ropes and twisted straps, embroidered and printed ergonomic patterns, skewed sequined checkerboards and poured silicone grills. In her couture collection, Donatella is determined to add new science to traditional techniques, and she noted that the work in this show was some of the most time-consuming she’s ever devised. Still, labor and complexity don’t always sell a dress. After all the body-con gowns and fitted minidresses, it was the moment when she broke free of the sporty theme with a few light, sheer dancedress silhouettes with full, airy skirts that looked best.

PARIS, JANUARY 24, 2016 SPRING 2016 COUTURE COLLECTION

ATEL IER VERSACE

CHANEL FASHION IS PART OF THE EVENTS OF OUR TIMES, declared Karl Lagerfeld about the Zen-like, eco-conscious serenity of the Chanel Haute Couture collection in the Grand Palais. Reacting to the times (especially in an age as troubled as ours) can also mean needing to detach from them, fashion-mindfulness equated with luxury in this case. So where last October there was the high-tech, noisy hurly-burly of the Chanel Airport, now there were the lush green lawns of a minimalist garden, water lily ponds, a slatted wood pavilion, and plenty of space and calm to contemplate it all under simulated blue skies. It seemed incredible that the same venue had been transformed into a convincing casino for the last couture show—a tribute to the set-design genius at Chanel—and just as incredible that this time, the gambling chips had been replaced by . . . wood chips. You read correctly: Wood chips were used as beading, paillettes, and 3-D frills among techniques involving recycled paper and organic woven yarn. The wedding look—a dreamy tufted hoodie, dress, and train—was all “made from wild cotton,” said Lagerfeld, quipping, “This is high-fashion ecology. It must not look like some sloppy demonstration!” A case could be built for haute couture being the most non-environmentally impactful branch of clothing production, anyway. It’s handmade, takes infinite hours of work, and potentially lasts a lifetime, the antithesis of fast fashion’s notorious processes and disposability. As the show unfolded, it became, in a way, a meditation on the timeless validity of Chanel’s principles: pale bouclé suits, attenuated in the skirt, puffed in the sleeve, and with set-away collars; a movement of classic navy and white (there was a lovely white-collared classic French Gigi-at-school dress); and passages of languid pearly charmeuse and black cocktailwear.

But it was the evening that soared from the moment Lagerfeld started to introduce flecks of gold into the suiting. An incredible jacket and skirt made completely of gold and black geometric paillettes, a narrow streak of wonderment worn by Jamie Bochert, passed by, succeeded by airy lamé capes, a haze of gold and sparkle, floating from the shoulders of white pantsuits. It would take a much closer look to understand the technical wizardry and the actual degree of ecological soundness embedded in these clothes. That’s what clients will come to understand when they go up to the Rue Cambon for their fittings. It may be that they won’t be swayed one way or the other by the trouble Chanel took to source some of its materials this season. What surely matters at a time like this, even to the superrich, is whether these clothes have the built-in sustainability of another sort: Will they look just as beautiful and valid five or 10 years from now? Answer: Chosen well, yes. In another season, Karl and Chanel will doubtless have moved swiftly on from talking about ecology. Still, one thing’s absolutely for certain: While the Grand Palais turf goes to compost and the temporary pavilion wood is repurposed, the precious clothes on this runway will never be destined to end their lives in a landfill.

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