This is a dedication to delicatesse by Elie Saab. He celebrated it so nicely by creating designs that offered a light and graceful mood by exploring degrees of transparency. Saab sprinkled his signature crystalline embroideries across fragile tulle and airy crinoline dresses, in hourglass and fishtail columns, and on new flaring Fifties shapes.
Everything was kept in a pale palette of ivory, pinks, icy blues and hot coral and spots of black. There were areas that were free of embroidery providing a clear view of the shoulders which were the designer's favorite body part of the season. Dense embroideries were clustered around the waists and trickled down to the hem of the skirts.
This collection is such a delightful display, full of wonderful confections that are perfect for the red carpet or for any other special occasion. One should not miss out in getting a dress that is an Elie Saab creation. The perfection of these dresses are most admirable because they speak of light and grace and delicatesse.
Within the space of the Grand Palais there were unseen birds singing in the dense forest of oak trees and pines. Wide plank steps led to the circular amphitheater within. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is the perfect inspiration for the guideline of this collection. Shakespeare would be quite amused, I'm sure. Karl Lagerfeld hit the note of haute in haute couture this season with a magnificent collection for Chanel. Clothes exquisite as can be with the usual craftsmanship of the petits mains that only can execute such high quality work with such finish that is perfection.
The setting was romantic and had an underlying mystery. Models wore piles of falling chiffon leaves in their hair and their eyes were encircled with feathered lashes. The standout for this line up was a message that Lagerfeld gave to make a point and that is: framed shoulders. This was a recurring theme in the collection and done in many different ways. Lagerfeld said "It brings life to the face." Exquisite tailored looks opened the show which included a pretty group of pale ribbon tweeds and a black dress with an embroidered yoke and collar.
Not only was there a focus on the framed shoulder but there was a diversity in the line up as well. Most of the day looks - like those beautiful ribbon tweeds - were short with volume, yet out came a trio of looks that had skirts falling to mid-calf.
Evening was quite a fest. Lagerfeld continued to do the shoulder thing as well with floral fluffiness on sleeves, a flurry of white flowers on a black sheath. There were some dense floral embroideries on some structured confections that intended to look like prints and were quite precise in its workmanship.
The finale looked like a dreamy story that was told. A pair of cutaway feathered beauties, one pink, one dusty green, worn with black leather gauntlets and boots came out. Following that were twin brides that looked delicate and diaphanous in aged white gowns and a ring bearer (Lagerfeld's godson). This is shown as gay marriage is being debated fiercely in France right now.
Why not now? The world has changed significantly and it is changing fiercely now. So why not now? It is the perfect time. Especially if you have the right dress and feel graceful especially when it comes from Chanel!
Valentino creative team Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli came up with an astonishing collection. There were some fine touches like the spaghetti-like embroideries coiled on coats and dresses. There was a model that stepped out in a black, birdcage-like cape made out of fabric tubes and the entire audience broke out in a spontaneous applause. Chiuri and Piccioli celebrated the feminine with grace and demonstrated intoxicating haute couture craftsmanship and beauty.
The cuts were precision and resolutely modern. Suits and coats were structured and conveyed a futuristic gloss doing away of any prim and proper air of what a suit is thought to be. One beautiful long sleeved gown was made in a glossy wool of a blush faint rose and had almost no detail but a high bud-like neckline and fabric just opening like petals in the back.
Going beyond flowers these designers created labyrinths on a Fifties skirt in strips of lace and dresses that would be exquisite statements for the spring. Beautiful embroidery depicts the spring season and it is all done poetically.
According to the program notes, it took 600 hours in the atelier on a dress that has a frothy bustier, with a skirt of black tulle with an outline of silvery birds flurrying against the sky. Piccioli and Chiuri wished to convey the lightness and the beauty of a garden, forgetting the labor that goes into creating the pieces.
Valentino Garavani embraced his two successors showing that they are continuing his fashion legacy. What a long way they have come! They deserve to have many, many flowers thrown to them.
According to Jean Paul Gaultier "It feels like a new beginning." He has many reasons to feel that way, including his recently signed deal with Gibo Co. SpA to again produce his women's ready-to-wear (the designer launched with Gibo 32 years ago). The couture collection he showed suggested an impressive creative refresh as well. Gaultier decided to be taken seriously while creating designs that made him a star in the first place.
Indian Gypsies helped Gaultier to manifest his collection for spring season. He stayed away from the cartoonish and gimmicky to convey the message of haute couture. Plenty of elegance flowed down the runway. A beautiful one shouldered black and white dress that celebrated the signature Gaultier sailor stripes was an example.
A calmer side of Gaultier was expressed as well with a voluminous white tunic and pants and a shantung trench over a sating gown. Yet there was a burst of color through lavish embroideries and patchwork that have the power to gather joyful attention. A stunner was a gold gown with black transparent insets topped with a vest of gold and black fringe and a crystal embroidered skirt that put an Indian spin on Mondrian.
Gaultier continued to add his signatures like the trench, the smoking, cone bra as well in subdued ways. What is a Jean Paul Gaultier collection without them anyways? I think we would be somewhat bored and it is always great to see so many different versions of them. Especially from Gaultier.
Stéphane Rolland has once again created a colleciton that is absolutely full of artwork that is unique, smooth and clean. A dreamlike quality always seem to be the aura in all of his designs. This season he decided to be more monocharamtic and the Palais de Tokyo contemporary art museum was the perfect place to show this collection. Some of these designs may be worn at the Cannes Film Festival this year. I am sure that Paz Vega, who was sitting in the front row, will wear one of the gowns with a dramatic fishtail. Many of Rolland's designs will be great for editorials for sure.
There were more structured pieces that were perfect to wear for some use and would make an amazing statement like a black trouser suit with stiff ruffles running across both sleeves. For the finale the oldest model in the world and yet a striking beauty, Carmen, came out in a beautiful white number with a flowing cape that made her look ravishing with her white hair pulled back.
Stéphane Rolland is one of a kind and so are his designs. Haute Couture has been good for him and he has been wonderful with Haute Couture. He is never a loss for design and concept. He is a wonderful talent and that is all there is in his being.
What can be said for Alexandre Vauthier? What came to mind for his spring couture collection was the word "tuxedo". It all started very strong when the first look opened the show. The line up was sleek, elegant and had a touch of glamour that came in forms of clean-cut tuxedos and satin catsuits that were lightly draped. Straight cut pants were topped with rich mink tops with bare backs.
It was all going fabulously until some evening gowns and dresses came out that were exposing a boob here and a boob there and was neither functional nor chic-fully done. Alexandre Vaultier lost his restraint and just did not finish strong. The end just had no appeal whatsoever. If there was a bit more fabric then there would be something to be left for the imagination and a lady can feel like a lady.
Bouchra Jarrar shows that she is a French designer that has a unique and incredible point of view. This collection had a real sense of practicality and modern elegance that was sleek, clean and lavishly simple with the Jarrar touch.
She offered coats with military buttons, lapels trimmed in beaver fur, rustic English felts and muted houndstooth were paired with sleek tuxedo pants in midnight blue.
There was an assymetric elements that had a side closure or a sloping collar or a quarter moon of fur flung from one lapel. A a short waisted shearling looked sexy and pretty chic and would make a perfect piece to have in any wardrobe.
Dresses were simple and clean and came in a creamy ivory color. A beautiful tank dress with a scooped back that was slightly off kilter had an impact in it's simplicity.
All in all these clothes have a futuristic allure to them. Jarrar knows herself so well as a designer and she consistently proves that she is someone in demand to make clothes that are parctical in a special modern haute couture kind of way. And there is a demand for that.
This collection was called Voltage. Iris van Herpen did in fact showed astonishing designs that were electrifying. "Inspired by a childhood dream, a desire to understand control and re-create lightning." The impact for her show featured a living sculpture standing in the center of the room with what looked like purple lighting passing through her body.
Miss van Herpen is known for the use of innovational techniques and produced, according to her "the first 3-D printed flexible dresses. These pieces were intricately designed and had a life on their own, making movements on their own independent of the models' bodies. There was a voluminous minidress that was matched with a huge wrap which transformed in a seashell armour. There were wearable dresses in black in layer of slightly see through knitted fabric as well which were delightful.
Iris van Herpen is a fantastic designer who always thinks out of the box. She reminds me a bit of Alexander McQueen but van Herpen's inspirations are always drawn from nature and its organic physiology and from that she produces unique and original creations.
I hope to see more of her work and I am sure those of you in the fashion atmosphere hope as well. She is definitely brilliant and unique.
Inspired from the maze-like streets of Tokyo, Christophe Josse created a variety of looks with embroideries that were intertwined and had intricate serpentine trimmings. The collection was mostly in black and white. Small bodices and wide skirts were the main silhouette.
In the mix there were some looks that had some comfort such as a black sleeveless dress with embroidery on the front. There was a pop of color such as a pale pink gowns in satin and chiffon and navy blue.
Overall this collection was fabulously feminine and had the right light touches that made everything look pretty.
Perfect!
Meticulous, manicured hedges by Belgian landscape artist Martin Wirtz was the stage for the anticipated Christian Dior couture presentation. It is definitely a pretty turn from the elaborate and beautifully dense setting of flowers from fall. Raf Simons said this is the very idea of spring. And so it was when the confections made their presence. The models were all done up and styled with small feathered caps of hair and wore sparkling red lips dressed in these originals.
The theme is similar to the allure to his fall couture and this time for spring it is even better.
The presentation started with a bustier dress with a black bodice, simply draped, with a delicious skirt in a Fifties cut and length.
Simons continues to reinvent the nipped in the waist tuxedos, and the bustiers worn over cigarette pants that models' hands were tucked into. There was a reference of Dior's iconic "Bar" jacket in flare at the hem of scoop-neck satin tops and in the ethereal, trumpet-shaped bridal gowns that came at the climax of the show.
Simons continued using the great ideas from his debut. Instead of embroideries on the front and back of his dresses, they were planted in an asymmetric fashion on fitted gowns and on a short sleeved dress in a sea foam color.
Simons gave some looks a modern and futuristic feel by using colors that were bold and unique like using neon yellow embroideries on a black bustier or tinting the edges of floral shapes with a shade of red on a cream column of Guipere lace.
Simons said he is taking things slow in the makeover of Dior. He didn't want to do a heavy concept, hence the idea of the garden, flowers, spring and the evolution of that.
The snow made Paris beautiful yet the streets were slushy. After viewing this impeccable collection spring is not such a bad idea after all! Wearing any of these Christian Dior creations will make spring even more fabulous!
The setting was the splenderous Italian Embassy in Paris which Giambattista Valli chose for his fourth couture presentation. This time he revealed a collection that was mostly sleek and sculptural.
He opened the show with a wasp silhouette, minimalist evening coat that was cinched in the waist and made of silk fabric that was of an abstract lynx fur print.
This set the tone what was about to come as the main template for the collection. Black and white animal prints on short or long dresses or bearing light decoration. Coats and dresses embroidered with flowers with petals composed of feathers was an example of Valli restraining from hedgelike volumes thus showing his restrained side. There was also a sexy like a bustier dress with animal print veiled in black tulle which was graphic as well.
Purely elegant were the wonderful dresses that were nipped in the waist with multi layered tulle twinkling with tiny crystals. Youthfully sexy were the very short dresses in heavy curtain brocades with swaying Watteau backs.
At the end the finale looks were just grand in heavy silks and bearing long trains with structured bodices and sweeping skirts that were regal and sublime.
Valli continues to design haute couture beautifully. He offers impeccable design and craftsmanship that are all sublime in detail, texture and creativity. What a beautiful spring it will be for 2013 for the House of Giambattista Valli!
Alexis Mabille is now an official Paris couture house. He celebrated by creating a venue in bubble gum pink that will match up with the frothy designs he sent down the runway. The show opened with a sheer pink chiffon blouse that had white sleeves and a pink peplum that was quite a froufrou paired with narrow pink razimir pants.
There was netting throughout from a white flirty cocktail dress layered in a dotted veil to a couple of dresses that had curtain like Neoprine mesh that were sweeping the floor. Some of the dresses had some bows and flowers on the shoulders that were just not the right touches.
The only look that was the strongest was a black belted tuxedo dress that was cut away in the front that revealed plenty of leg. Why couldn't Mabille create more looks like that?
I do like Alexis Mabille's sense of whimsy but this time it made me raise an eyebrow and made me go through his collection fast!
