The sudden demise of designer Thierry Mugler and fashion journalist André Leon Talley has filled this season's Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week with nostalgia.
Bold, dramatic, the pursuit of the ultimate beauty, and boring to wear, will probably be the most common words used to describe these two fashion icons.
One creates a style, one records a style, and their end symbolizes the passing of a vibrant, deadly fashion era. As for why they arouse nostalgia, mainly because the fashion memories they have left behind are too memorable, such as Thierry Mugler's sexually suggestive elements and even weird things that are excluded from traditional aesthetics to the haute couture stage, and the large André Leon Talley is keen to wear a variety of large and colorful pompous fashions, Valentino's couture was his favorite.
Thierry Mugler
These fashion memories created by the two idols are mixed with disturbing and uncomfortable looks, but it is precisely in this way that people can experience the arrogance and invincibility of haute couture from these designs and images, which is the most fatal attraction of fashion. So how much people couldn't accept Thierry Mugler and André Leon Talley back then, how much people miss them today.
After all, haute couture fashion has been boring for too long under the influence of the shrinking scale of consumption, the blow of the epidemic, the increasingly fast pace of the industry, and the "forced" to go out of the high wall to participate in the discussion of social issues. Therefore, people are eager to experience the drama and gorgeous dreams of haute couture fashion once again, just like the fashion memories left by these two idols.
Andre Leon Talley
Luckily, at spring/summer 2022 couture fashion week on January 28, we saw a reenactment of the dream-making spirit of fashion represented by Thierry Mugler and André Leon Talley, but at the same time we also saw the shabby and more radical narrative of couture fashion.
Daniel Roseberry, Glenn Martens, Jean Paul Gaultier, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, among others, recreate the subjectivity of couture and sell fashion fantasies again; Virginie Viard, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Kim Jones and Pierpaolo Piccioli break certain industry stereotypes. Infuse couture fashion with more contemporary ideological connotations and use it as a mirror of reality.
Before the rise of the garment industry in the 1960s, haute couture fashion had a very solid appearance, so that it became the imitation object of most ready-to-wear brands later, and various "couture flat styles" began to emerge in large quantities. Therefore, at that time, haute couture fashion was also facing the same situation as the current high-end ready-to-wear - the birth of fast fashion brands made the cost of following fashion trends extremely low, ordinary consumers can spend hundreds of yuan to buy clothes that are almost the same as big-name fashion, and this also spawned a "ready-to-wear high-end" industry trend, many brands with high-end workshops have begun to use various types of high-end craftsmanship to improve the "entry threshold" of their own ready-to-wear.
Therefore, with the rapid development of the garment industry, couture fashion in order to maintain its own luxury and uniqueness, began to develop in the direction of "dream-making". Fashion designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren have pushed couture to the top of the fashion pyramid. As a special market with only 2,000 users in the world, couture fashion is undoubtedly niche compared to ready-to-wear for the public, but this allows designers and brands to free their hands and feet and inject a sense of drama, radicalism and even risk-taking.
Maison Margiela's AW20 haute couture collection
In a sense, haute couture represents the highest fashion ideal. If ready-to-wear that can be mass-produced is a tool to achieve the fashion ideal, then luxury couture fashion is the cornerstone of building a high wall of fashion ideals. Couture fashion, once the land of unbridled dreams, is now returning to its essence, namely gorgeous design, superb craftsmanship, and drama that does not conform to reality.
Schiaparelli under Daniel Roseberry is very suitable for the current context of the times, his design is like a social currency serving social media, which may be difficult for ordinary people to get on or difficult to accept, but if you put it on your body and take a photo and post it online, it is likely to get the "Like" vote from netizens. In Daniel Roseberry's work over the past few seasons, curious and surreal design elements have captured Schiaparelli's fans, and the complexity of this has made people talk a little more about social media.
Schiaparelli's Spring /Summer 2022 Haute Couture Collection
Located in place of place Vendôme in Paris, Daniel Roseberry presents his Spring/Summer 2022 couture collection. The series was inspired by several sci-fi films he watched during the pandemic lockdown, such as Dune, Prometheus, Interstellar and Advent. Exaggerated metal body decorations that resemble the trajectory of a celestial body, a classical corset structure, a rounded shoulder cut and a black and white gold color scheme make the collection full of visual impact, while inheriting Elsa Schiaparelli's love of surrealist art, Daniel Roseberry also brings design into the discussion of the female body. This design, which blends a surrealist aesthetic and classical fashion, has caused people to think about couture fashion. For Daniel Roseberry, couture is no longer the same large silhouette, large skirt, nor is it a blind performance of sweet to greasy feminine beauty, perhaps drama, the playfulness of reality and the reproduction of romance are the spirit of the times that the current couture fashion should grasp.
Following Sacai founder and Japanese designer Chitose Abe, Belgian designer Glenn Martens, who is also the creative director of both Y/Project and Diesel, became Jean Paul Gaultier's second guest couture designer. Perhaps because he only needed to make a series for Gaultier, Glenn Martens was able to leave the business baggage behind and pay tribute to Gaultier with his own design techniques.
Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring /Summer 2022 Haute Couture collection, designed by Glenn Martens
Its signature pleated design is stacked with tulle of different layers or colors, attaching to the body to create an extremely stiff sculptural feel. Different details such as tulle bandages, twisted proportions, knitting and rework, three-dimensional decoration, etc., not only refine Gaultier's own classic symbols, but also integrate his own techniques, it can be said that he broke the dullness of haute couture fashion and let people re-experience the sensory stimulation brought by fashion.
Like Daniel Roseberry, Viktor & Rolf looks to the film for inspiration this season. The image of Dracula the vampire inspired the towering shoulder structure of the season, from trench coats and blazers to tuxedo jackets, shirts and dresses, both designers incorporated towering shoulder designs. Creating this unusual extreme shoulder line also means that the entire line of the garment will be lengthened vertically, and the waist line will also be reduced, and this unbalanced and strange look is like recreating the theme of the 1990s fashion show.
Viktor & Rolf Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture Collection
The designs made by these two designers have always had a spirit of classical couture fashion, not deliberately pleasing the market, nor over-welcoming consumers, and have a stubbornness of self-care and hard play. The times have not smoothed their edges and corners, but have made them more radical to break the pure beauty of haute couture fashion, and the strong emotional experience and ostentatious beauty that re-fashion can bring.
Couture fashion is going to be born, and it is also going to enter the world.
On January 26, Valentino hosted the Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture Valentino Anatomy of Couture launch show in Paris. In this series, themed "A Study on The Body," Pierpaolo Piccioli hopes to convey an important idea that there is no absolute standard for beauty. Regarding the aesthetics of the human body, which once presented different faces in different historical eras, it is now more necessary to achieve tolerance and support for different body types, ages, races, and genders. Haute couture fashion, which has always been afraid to express its position on social issues, has broken a certain taboo and allowed itself to join the discussion of pluralistic aesthetics and the construction of inclusiveness.
Valentino Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture Collection
Kim Jones, on the other hand, recreates the Roman aesthetic based on reality. The city's traditional heritage, stately marble architecture, and religious aesthetics are all incorporated into a futuristic framework of exploration. Kim Jones explains: "When you walk the streets of Rome, it's like going back and forth in different time and space. Our workplaces are modern, but on the way to work we pass countless old historic buildings. The city exudes an elegance that does not pass with time: it seems that there is a historical thread running through it, and at the same time it presents a momentum of forward progress. ”
Fendi's Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture Collection
By combining traditional techniques with modern craftsmanship, Kim Jones has found a point where past and present come together. Using a wonderful chiaroscuro technique, classical sculptures outside the Italian Palace of Culture at Fendi's headquarters are painted on the surface of short velvet mink leather and velvet. Embroidered with miniature sequins, mink fritters and pearls in hot-pressed leather, it echoes the Corinthian relief look. A visual language of power runs through it, and warrior-like armor-like jackets made of Persian lamb wool and leather are reminiscent of ancient warriors, and this is kim jones's celebration of feminine power.
To Dior and Chanel, these two haute couture house brands, but invariably respond to the "everyday couture fashion" trend that can not be ignored.
Drawing inspiration from the avant-garde art of the 1920s and 1930s, Virginie Viard rode off on the Chanel Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture runway with Ambassador Charlotte Casiraghi in a Chanel sequin embroidered black tweed coat. At the same time, Virginie Viard also paid tribute to the aesthetic style of the World's Fair on the runway installation, and used it as the design framework for the launch.
Chanel Spring /Summer 2022 Haute Couture Collection
In terms of design, the collection also exudes feminine charm, with a pink tweed coat embellished with white stripes, a white woven shoulder strap embroidered with beads or a silver chain, two-tone Mary Jane trip shoes, an innovative interpretation of the 1920s heel design in the style of the 1980s, and exquisite geometric embroidery, which complements the live design. At the same time, all the embroidery workshops cooperated by the brand are involved in the creation of this series, and one of the core works of the series is a dress created by Lesage Embroidery Workshop, which embroiders constructivist camellias under the skirt with black, white and coral beads, and paired with a small black coat, as if launching a dialogue with the founder of the brand across time and space.
Chanel's Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture Collection
Clean and simple, without much decoration and no imposing silhouette design, everything shows a pure fashion aesthetic, which is the new couture fashion in Virginie Viard's eyes. Unlike Karl Lagerfeld, Virginie Viard's Chanel couture, although still reflecting the dreaminess of haute couture, is more like a fashion dream that can be reached and realized, and it is a kind of everyday couture fashion.
Maria Grazia Chiuri invites two renowned artists, Madhvi Parekh and Manu Parekh, to interpret their creative dialogue with India in Dior's Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture collection. It is hoped that through this pair of artists, the differences between the sexes are not opposed to each other, but a complementary and long-term symbiotic existence.
Dior Spring/Summer 2022 Haute Couture Collection
As a result, all the walls of the show are covered with the works of the two artists, like an art retrospective. A hallmark of the collection, the tights are sculpted with embroidery techniques. Evening gowns and ruffled tights also play a harmonious tune, blending the delicacy of embroidery with the lightness of tulle. The embroidery motif, the core element of this season, not only interprets the brand's classic style, but also carries a beautiful vision in the interpretation of haute couture collections, making the Dior Haute Couture Workshop a symbol of collaboration, where haute couture represents never-ending innovative experimentation and deep thinking.
Reflections on the lifestyle of contemporary women have led designers to re-examine the meaning of today's haute couture fashion and inject a more realistic portrayal into it. On the other hand, as haute couture has gradually become a social media for social media and celebrity celebrities, haute couture has become a marketing tool for fashion brands, becoming their ticket to the top of the ivory pyramid, so today's haute couture still needs to be a representative of the fashion dream. The "big drama" of fashion will continue to play, so designers must continue to rack their brains to break boundaries and revive romance, and once again reproduce the subjectivity of fashion and the reflection of reality. WWD
Written by Karlie
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