'the world loves a good fairytale. the teenagers love Twilight, music's got Lady GaGa. we have Avatar, Inception.. there's something irresistible about a dream state. fashion's fairytale is haute couture, the twice-yearly parade in Paris of outifts that have as much to do with the practical concerns of everyday dressing as a chinchilla coat in a sauna. a fairytale is supposed to cloak a germ of instruction - there's a moral to this story - which is one reason why couture always brings on a bout of media breast-beating about its relevance. a dying art? its already stone cold, cry the doubters.
it didn't used to be that way. there was an era when the Countess Mona Bismarck had even her gardening clothes custom-made by Cristobel Balenciaga, the greatest couturier of them all. those were different times. now, depending on who you listen to, haute couture is a laboratory in which an ever-declining number of designers experiment with ideas that htey will translate into their ready-to-wear. or its a loss-eader promotional vehicle for designer fragrances, where there is still some real money to be made. or its a clothing resource for a few hundred wealthy women around the world. or its still a fairytail that is sustained by fashion's faith in the beauty of decades-old craftsmanship. or its a gorgeous zombie.
i used to cover couture regularly for television, and it always yielded a telegenic spectacle that knocked the major read-to-wear trend of the day into a cocked hat, on screen at least. so that was my own purely selfish reason for appreciating the four or five days in Paris when Chanel, Christian Dior, Valentino, Emanuel Ungaro, Givenchy, Christian Lacroix and Jean Paul Gaultier, among others, would parade heights of extravagance unattainable at any other stratum of fashion. i hadn't been to the couture shows for a few years until this past July's presentations for autumn 2010. i'd love to tell you i come to praise couture, not to bury it, but the thrill had gone (along with a number of those names whose shows i used to attend).
execept, that is, for John Galliano's latest couture collection for Christian Dior.
Flowers were his theme, and it was the perfect marriage of designer and inspiration, given Galliano's native flair for colour and shape. there all sorts of reminders - petals and fronds and ruffles - that nature is unmatchable for special effects.
Galliano offered daywear, too, in the sense that there were jackets and skirts in which you could perambulate through a hotel lobby without scarring the horses. there's always wit in the window-dressing of any Galliano collection. this time, Stephen Jones wrapped the models' heads in florist's cellophane and the belts looked like the raffia that ties a bunch of flowers - such playfully humble accompaniments to clothes that cost a queen's ransom. Galliano nails that notion so well: in this pragmatic day and age, haute couture is designer playtime, the one moment when commercial considerations, the dreaded cost effectiveness, for exmample, can take a back seat. but playfulness was in short supply over the rest of the couture calendar. Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci, for instance, offered a masterclass in the extraordinary techniques, fabric treatments and embellishments that are the traditional stuff of haute couture. a gown in Chantilly lace appliqued with leather that was a tone-on-tone duplication of the pattern of hte lace was utterly, impressively obbsessive in its detailing. another lace dress had taken six months to make. in these years of fast-food-fashion-everything, such conspicuous consumption of time and effort has evolved into a strut for couture's luxury cred, almost an end in itself. i think that's kind of decadent, but Tisci's fascinated with decadence. and he's not alone. maybe that's why couture endures, if not as an actual code of dressing, at least as a form of popular entertainment.
Karl Lagerfeld can lay claim to being the last real grand master of couture. so he understands all about creating a wardrobe that should technically dress a couture client for every conceivable exigency in her life. and he has always done this with an enviable lightness of touch. but this couture collection was heavy, almost morbid in its palette and elongated proportions. it took me by surprise, and i found that rather seductive.
i've been saying for quite a while that the future of fashion will belong again to the tailor and the dressmaker, as people search for somethign that is truly informed, special and personal, rather than the product of a huge fashion concern. perhaps that presages the end of couture as we know it now. but it will never be "The End".'
it didn't used to be that way. there was an era when the Countess Mona Bismarck had even her gardening clothes custom-made by Cristobel Balenciaga, the greatest couturier of them all. those were different times. now, depending on who you listen to, haute couture is a laboratory in which an ever-declining number of designers experiment with ideas that htey will translate into their ready-to-wear. or its a loss-eader promotional vehicle for designer fragrances, where there is still some real money to be made. or its a clothing resource for a few hundred wealthy women around the world. or its still a fairytail that is sustained by fashion's faith in the beauty of decades-old craftsmanship. or its a gorgeous zombie.
i used to cover couture regularly for television, and it always yielded a telegenic spectacle that knocked the major read-to-wear trend of the day into a cocked hat, on screen at least. so that was my own purely selfish reason for appreciating the four or five days in Paris when Chanel, Christian Dior, Valentino, Emanuel Ungaro, Givenchy, Christian Lacroix and Jean Paul Gaultier, among others, would parade heights of extravagance unattainable at any other stratum of fashion. i hadn't been to the couture shows for a few years until this past July's presentations for autumn 2010. i'd love to tell you i come to praise couture, not to bury it, but the thrill had gone (along with a number of those names whose shows i used to attend).
execept, that is, for John Galliano's latest couture collection for Christian Dior.
Flowers were his theme, and it was the perfect marriage of designer and inspiration, given Galliano's native flair for colour and shape. there all sorts of reminders - petals and fronds and ruffles - that nature is unmatchable for special effects.
Galliano offered daywear, too, in the sense that there were jackets and skirts in which you could perambulate through a hotel lobby without scarring the horses. there's always wit in the window-dressing of any Galliano collection. this time, Stephen Jones wrapped the models' heads in florist's cellophane and the belts looked like the raffia that ties a bunch of flowers - such playfully humble accompaniments to clothes that cost a queen's ransom. Galliano nails that notion so well: in this pragmatic day and age, haute couture is designer playtime, the one moment when commercial considerations, the dreaded cost effectiveness, for exmample, can take a back seat. but playfulness was in short supply over the rest of the couture calendar. Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci, for instance, offered a masterclass in the extraordinary techniques, fabric treatments and embellishments that are the traditional stuff of haute couture. a gown in Chantilly lace appliqued with leather that was a tone-on-tone duplication of the pattern of hte lace was utterly, impressively obbsessive in its detailing. another lace dress had taken six months to make. in these years of fast-food-fashion-everything, such conspicuous consumption of time and effort has evolved into a strut for couture's luxury cred, almost an end in itself. i think that's kind of decadent, but Tisci's fascinated with decadence. and he's not alone. maybe that's why couture endures, if not as an actual code of dressing, at least as a form of popular entertainment.
Karl Lagerfeld can lay claim to being the last real grand master of couture. so he understands all about creating a wardrobe that should technically dress a couture client for every conceivable exigency in her life. and he has always done this with an enviable lightness of touch. but this couture collection was heavy, almost morbid in its palette and elongated proportions. it took me by surprise, and i found that rather seductive.
i've been saying for quite a while that the future of fashion will belong again to the tailor and the dressmaker, as people search for somethign that is truly informed, special and personal, rather than the product of a huge fashion concern. perhaps that presages the end of couture as we know it now. but it will never be "The End".'
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