Haute Couture Round-Up

Chanel 

As the sunlight poured through the windows of the Grand Palais and powder blue skies lay over Paris, it was almost as though the design team at Chanel knew their Haute Couture SS25 show would be the perfect foil to the grey skies and the rare glimpse of January sun. Think Chanel, you think black and white. But Coco Chanel was as much a painter with a wide colour palette as she was a monochrome lover. Inspired by the idea of changing skies, sinking sun and inky nightfall were embodied by the Couture collection. Opening the show, a watercolour pastel tweed suit segued into blossom chiffon and organza gowns mirroring the colours of dawn. Hollywood, 1930s glamour in silky gowns was a wonderful contrast to the boxy tweed suits. Tailoring and colour aside, it was all about a short, 60s mini skirt so we predict those personal trainer sessions are getting booked up to get those legs ready.

Dior 

A taxonomy of craft, Dior’s SS25 Haute Couture show blended fashion design, painting and embroidery in a collaborative forum that allowed each discipline to shine in its own right. Commissioned by Maria Grazia Chiuri, artist Rithika Merchant painted nine original pieces for the show, which were transformed into a large-scale tapestry embroidered by the Chanakya School. Maria Grazia’s Dior has used its Haute Couture (and RTW) shows as a platform to highlight and platform other craftswomen and artists, shining a light on so many female artists and has by now, accumulated some amazing artworks in the process. We envy the LVMH art archive! To the clothes now…feathered accents, broderie anglaise bustles and birdcage-like hoop skirts married decadence with romance, offering a revised Renaissance vision for the collection. With several female archetypes at play, Dior honed in on multiple facets of womanhood, the romantic, the fierce, and the gentle, reflecting their customer in all respects.

Valentino 

Costume or clothes? That is the question, when it came down to Alessandro Michele debut Haute Couture collection for Valentino.  Stiff crinoline mega skirts and gorgeously excessive frills, the 48 looks were modelled by either cherubic young models or wisely aged women with greying hair, a timely riposte to the charge last season of working with very young looking models. Accompanying show notes were over 100 pages long, with each of the 48 looks broken down in fabric, hours, and references. Titled ‘Vertigineux’ or a poetics of the list, Alessandro confronts the logical order of lists paired with the suffocation they breed, nurturing an infinity that you are subsumed by, and you don’t even realise it. You think that’s intense? The first look alone took more than 1,300 hours to make and the ensuing collection saw Ottoman, Venetian and East Asian influences conjured across the unpredictable collection. Masses of tulle, pedantic quilting, tiered gowns and surrealist headpieces, it was a collection that has to be seen to be believed. With this imposing deadline and the overwhelming concept of ‘Vertigineux’ lingering with him, Alessandro uses this debut as an opportunity to “journey into the vertigo of an unfinished multiplicity.”

Alexandre Vauthier 

After missing the Couture season last year, Alexandre Vauthier returns with his SS25 Haute Couture collection. While sticking to some of his signature Vauthier-isms, the collection developed his icons into new shapes and fabrications that sat well within his world. While his elevated 80’s powerhouse codes were peppered within pieces in the collection, with slouchy leather boots and dramatic one-shoulder detailing still at the forefront, the show explored new silhouettes too. A standout look featured a draped and pleated jumpsuit that cocooned over the model’s head, designed in a stony taupe, the drama of the all-encompassing silhouette was nicely balanced by the flat hue. While Alexandre’s palette is always notably neutral, his penchant for metallics always brighten up his collections to bring the bling in contrast to the sharpness of his silhouettes. With this collection’s more muted approachin colour palette, it meant the clothes took centre stage.

Julie De Libran

Amidst the circus of Haute Couture week, the Julie de Libran offered an intimate escape from the celebrity and street-style madness that occurs outside the venues in the cobbled streets of Paris. Hosted at the designer’s own home, living spaces were transformed into a row of friends and family, while the show was accompanied by a musical performance by Lila Dupont. Medieval elegance was at the heart of the collection; cut with contemporary glamour, there was a real sense that the women of Julie de Libran’s world embodied a warrior-like allure. Chains draped over hoods, shoulder pads or dangling off hems accentuated these female-knight vision and the decadence of a bygone era is replicated through feather boas full looks that sparkle. We also loved how she uses the daughters of her friends to model the collections. Glancing over the show notes, it’s clear that while the brand has identified its customer precisely, she can’t be pinned down, for “she ultimately belongs to no era but a time of her own.”

Ludovic de Saint Sernin for Jean Paul Gaulthier 

While the term ‘La Naufrage’ (translating to ‘the shipwreck’) is an ambiguous statement to introduce a show with, it yields wild imaginings, and thunderous visions and lays the stage to a tumultuous theatricality. For Ludovic de Saint Sernin, the opportunity to author a Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture show was a dream come true and offered the perfect moment to bring his theatrical flair, undercut with a sense of darkness to the fashion stage. An ensemble of characters, including, The Premonition, The Net, Venus and The Helm were embodied by illustrative couture looks. The ship’s creaking body, emulated with delicately boned corsetry, the sea foam calcified by effervescent tulle stitched to the hem, mermaid gown silhouettes and a deep scarlet skirt, accompanied with a “top” crafted from curved brass, that spelt out the word ‘Naufrage’. Of course, this host of cast-aways, ship rubble and demi-gods were all part of the same story. Yet, there’s a sense that even as singular moments, removed from the collective show, the story and the vision would still have been executed just as beautifully and dramatically.