With the luxury world hotly competing to deliver untrammelled experiences, peek emotions and fan the flames of desire – Paris haute couture outperformed on all levels. From the hand calligraphy on invitations, to magical stage sets (fantasy garden at Chanel, tropical art house at Dior), to the hundreds of hours devoted to creating just one embellished design, couturiers poured their imaginations into the finest artistry, even plasma.
Where in seasons past, the haute couture offering might have appeared like an anachronistic museum piece catering to the social diaries of a seriously wealthy Middle Eastern clientele, today the leaders are inventing the zeitgeist and moving into scientific, artistic and even cosmic explorations that AI cannot reach.
Daniel Roseberry called his collection for Schiaparelli The Call of the Void and writes eloquently about his experience. “Formulas are antithetical to the magic of creation which can be found only in total surrender to the unknown. Naming things, defining things, is comforting. But in doing so, you’re stripping something of its infinite power and magic – you’re making it less terrifying but also less exhilarating,” he says. Elsa Schiparelli was as he describes like a "wrecking ball" to the polite genteel fashion world of the 1930s when couturiers fussed over pin tucks and pearl buttons. Roseberry like Elsa excels in going beyond convention and he did this in an extraordinary line-up of designs that were the sartorial equivalent of aquatic diving and astral travelling. Possible? A visit to Barcelona and to Gaudi’s marvels that drew from the organic architecture of undersea worlds was a starting point. Here were sculpted, glazed silicone corset dresses with a glow from within via tiny LED strip lighting positioned under the breast pieces, tulle gowns with hovering tentacles (can I tickle you?), and boleros covered with tiny petals, teamed with latex ruffle skirts. The deep-sea currents were explored in baroque pearl-embellished real sponge handbags, seashell embroidery and sea urchin ‘bubble’ pumps.
Indeed, the shooting star of the moment – Matthieu Blazy – has ignited a new fervour in fashion not just in the queues for correspondent pumps and soft pleat 25 bags at the Chanel stores, but also by reinforcing the beauty and life enhancing joy of the craft. On finding a book of fairytales in Gabrielle Chanel’s apartment he ventured into fantasy land – after all Chanel cloaked herself in myths and make believe to escape her humble origins. The upshot or should we say Jack and the Beanstalk upshoot, sidestepped cutesy for enchantment. Materials reigned supreme from raffia embroidered jackets featuring Goossens made buttons that ranged from seed to bud to sunflower on one knock out style that was teamed with a plaid shirt and denim look tweed frayed edge jeans. Blazy is a wizz at trompe l’oeil. Other fairy tales were retold in gold minaudieres in the shape of a bear; in three outfits that tracked the ugly duckling morphing into a swan (cue a stunning bugle beaded shift dress) and in a magpie dress covered with chains and buttons embroidered by Lesage. The shoes with painted 3D heels in the shape of eggs, pea pods and tropical flowers ensured the storytelling played out top to toe. Clients were treated to a private concert by Vanessa Paradis the same evening.
Hong Kong born London trained Robert Wun was accepted as a haute couturier three years ago. He too looked at elements of innocence in his collection, Childsplay. Here a grand gown was splattered with paint splashes like a walking Jackson Pollock and a ballooning choirboy smock dress topped with an antler headpiece. Wun charted the passage from childhood to adulthood and closed with a sculptural black dress with ginormous shoulders and tiny waist that appeared in a cloud of giant balloons. Wun said his intent was to keep wonder alive. He did.
How do you maximise cultural capital? Dior’s answer is to turn Jonathan Anderson’s collection into a public access exhibition at the show’s location, the delightful Musee Rodin. Entitled The Grammar of Forms, school children were enthralled, posing in the Dior branded pavilion and gazing into exhibits. Original Dior creations from the heyday of 1950s couture with their signature neat waists, bustle skirts and sculpted bodices were shown alongside Anderson’s much looser silhouettes where draping, pleating and texture shine. Interspersed are sculptures and works by American artist Lynda Benglis which inspired the collection. She channels her Indian origins into wild bricolage pieces, into abstract twisted metal sculptures and textile works covered with glitter and shimmer. Anderson’s corresponding bricolage skirts with exposed lattice framework resembling Benglis’ chicken wire pieces looked thrilling in dialogue, so too did his luminous pleated ensembles.
There are a lot of studies in glow and light this season with Iris Van Herpen scoring a 1st for Sonic Starquakes which grew out of a serious study of sonic vibrating stars and the spiralling geometries of galaxies. She worked with CERN’s particle physics laboratory for plasma research. In a feat of engineering she twisted handblown glass tubes filled with plasma (think wearable plasma lamp) that emanated strange crackling glows around a sculpted dress. Another, Helix Nebula, in sheer tulle was covered in thousands of tiny glass spheres that responded to the body’s electromagnetic field creating waves of luminosity. Elsewhere, diaphanous designs with vast floating wings of metallic organza emulated the spectrum of the aurora borealis.
“Around us and within us vast dimensions of reality remain undiscovered. I do not seek to explain them, instead they heighten the awareness of the unknown, reminding us of the mysteries that lie within the multiverse,” says Van Herpen. She is an extraordinary talent who consistently questions and pushes the boundaries of design at the nexus of science and spirituality. In our age of AI and instant explanations, the sense of magic and wonder is terrific to behold.
