Return of Chic (posted on 12/07/2011)

Azzedine Alaia has shown again at Paris Haute Couture. His intricately tailored and sculpted-to-the-body designs were presented in his home/studio in Paris’ Marais district. 

As stubborn as ever he refused to invite US Vogue’s Anna Wintour and Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld. Designer Donatella Versace, film director Sofia Coppola and Rap inferno Kanye West appeared instead. And what a show it was. With muted colours in tones of leafy greens, deep plum, black and mauve, the designer has ventured into new territory of understated chic colours. The silhouettes are tailored, formal, and overly prim. There are coats a plenty in rich textures such as crocodile skin and thick wools. Were it not for the Mongolian fur-embellished dresses and skirts, the collection could have easily gone down in memory lane as staples in a 21^st century nun’s closet. 

Alaia steadfastly and irreverently stays true to his own aesthetic and beliefs of making a woman look and feel beautiful. But does he really deliver to that? His dresses hug a woman’s upper body and then flare dramatically from the waist down. His only slight departures are the fur pieces that are so deliciously youthful, extravagant and above all luxurious. With such a magnificent amount of fur one easily forgets that real women would be blown out of their normal proportions and into elephant-sized dimensions were they to walk in Alaia’s creations through today’s streets. 

In stark contrast to the magnificent fur coats and the on boring verging repetition of wool coats stand five dresses with ruffle explosions on the skirt. It is questionable if any woman could look and feel beautiful in those creations. He designs for a super thin Alaia-approved elite that literally “fits” his styles. The collection is as much demonstration of skill as it is declaration of resistance to the arbiter’s of cool, edgy and sexy fashions.