Saint Laurent: New Vintage

Saint Laurent for Spring-Summer 2013:

- French dressing in L.A.?

- French-California fusion?

- The New Vintage?


They may all be correct. I have chosen the New Vintage, because this debut collection at Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane wasn't about new proportions or colors, per se. It was about a certain esprit, which gave the clothes, admittedly early-YSL inspired, a newness that has been absent in recent fashion. If the collection wasn't letter-perfect on trend, it was, more importantly, on strategy.

Mr. Slimane understood his challenge, and it is one that few "artistic directors" at major fashion labels really understand: how to breathe new life into a heritage brand.

Why this collection stands out is its French-West Coast American feel. Take note.

In a really strong season, let us see if this collection both resonates and reverberates through fashion.

- AP

Quiet Couture: Restraint and Presence

Amid the ruffles, embroidery and feathers, beyond the riotous mix of patterns, colors and textures that all seem to clamor for attention in our cacaphonous world of the hypernew, there is fashion that does not shout, yet can speak volumes. Call it quiet couture.

Applied restraint does not transform the wearer but rather contributes to a wearer's presence. The difficulty lies in knowing when only the small details suffice.

Worth, Mainbocher: The Online Exhibition

Gentle Reader -

The Museum of the City of New York's exhibition of Worth & Mainbocher can be found here:

http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MNYO28_2

Welcome to a period when fashion was once set by the collaborative effort of personal and professional taste. To get the most of this online exhibition, it's best to use the "magnify" option to get to the details.

Two items of note among the clothes:

Worth: a pale blue evening dress from 1866-67 (ref. 62.190.1A-C)

Mainbocher: a black day dress from 1947 (fall, ref. 58.123.3)

Enjoy!

- AP

Couture: Past Tense?

Gentle Reader -

Question: Can haute couture still exist outside of museum exhibitions?

Perhaps the answer can be found this week during the Fall/Winter presentations in Paris.

- AP

Transitional Fashion: Not Quite

This dress is most likely circa 1830-1840. In many ways, it is easy to see that this is a transitional silhouette:

- not quite the high waist/bust of Grecian gowns from the Napoleonic period
- not quite the wide lower waist that would soon be the rage

Today's fashion is again approaching that "not quite" moment which signals a shift in silhouette. The question isn't a what so much as it is a where and when.

- AP

Retrospective Fashion

Gentle Reader -

Despite the due attention given to a certain dress way, way back on April 29, 2011, we have a most curious phenomenon developing quickly in today's fashion:

Museum-curated collections by dead designers which compete with current collections by living designers for fashion relevance, if not exactly for sales

In case you were wondering, yes, the Alexander McQueen dress above was on display in 2010 at the V&A. Yet a year later, we have "Savage Beauty" currently at the Met's Costume Institute:

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/

Until next time -

AP

Couture Masterpiece of the Week: Jean Patou

A dress to study: this technical masterpiece from Jean Patou is both subtle and dazzling. Confidence and carriage are needed to wear it to great effect. A reminder that great dresses demand to be shown off. From the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A).

- AP

Future Vintage: Chanel P/E 2011

Gentle Reader -

Usually Chanel collections under Karl Lagerfeld are one of the following:

- very Chanel
- very Karl
- very Now

The recent collection for P/E 2011 (that's 'Spring-Summer' for the beginners), was something else entirely: all three at once, and it made for a unique moment in fashion.

Here was a ready-to-wear collection (or more correctly, a limited edition showing) that evoked everything that was exclusively the domain of haute couture alone: lightness, movement, impeccability, and mastery of form. Did I mention that it was even hauntingly beautiful?

This was a collection for the history books - if books will still be around. No, this Chanel collection was not the earth shatter of Dior's 1947 Corolle (ah, the 'New Look') or spellbound opulence of Yves Saint Laurent's 1976 Ballets Russes.

This was a breaking through time, the force of Karl's vision made current fashion look utterly contrived and out-of-date. For those who pre-order, I am sure you have done so already.

- AP

Vintage Jean Patou

Sometimes a beautiful dress transcends both time and trends, which is a lesson we all need to remember in the age of the hypernew. Please enjoy this dress on exhibit at the V&A.

- AP

The Couture House: More than the Name

Gentle Reader -

Surely you've not been fooled by equity firms (among others) who have acquired the names of once-great couture houses.

The fashion collections produced by these half-dead houses, while on-trend, is less than stellar - and certainly does not live up to the standards of those same names sewn inside of the clothing.

It would be too easy - and too unkind - to list the many Parisian fashion houses here. However, it is more instructive to give one successful example:

Balenciaga under Monsieur G.


Balenciaga no longer produces haute couture (such as the vintage example above), but remains edgy, at the forefront of fashion. Certainly the clothing is much different than when Cristobal himself presided, but the spirit of the house remains. Why? Here are some thoughts for those fashion executives overseeing the number-crunching:

1. To own a fashion house, you must know fashion. La mode is not the same as producing lacquered pens. Fashion is a part of luxury, but requires spirit. This is powerful - and can be dangerous. Lagerfeld himself has on more than one occasion referred to Mademoiselle's ghost.

2. A designer is more than an employee. Or at least should be. The designer is that person who should give life to a house. I can't say how a designer breathes life to the fashion created, but there is a difference between clothing with life - and mere clothing. A replaceable employee is often loathe to give more than technical ability. Often, ideas are withheld as well, to say nothing of dreams and one's own essence.

3. Trends are not meant to be followed, but played with. In the current era of Big Fashion, everything seems to be reduced to the Numbers. And the Numbers are afraid of not creating profit. And so the Numbers direct the designer-employee to be as on-trend as possible.

Trends exist, but it is a designer's ability to play with trends - emphasizing here, diminishing (or discarding) there - that produces vibrant fashion. Color, proportion, embellishment and fabrication: the designer should be in control.

4. Visit (or create) the archive. Houses with storied-pasts require trips though those pasts. Recreate the story. Reinvent the story. The fashion label was bought for a reason, so use what is already on hand. Clean breaks from a couture house's history were once new and revolutionary, but by now it is a cliche. Use what is on hand.

- AP

Evening Accessories and Accoutrements

Gentle Reader -

A fashionable life once contained more than a gorgeous handbag. Irving Penn's stills of spilled contents opened up this secret world of pillboxes, small minaudières, and gold things.

Accessories and accoutrements can reveal more than a gorgeous dress. Just a thought as the season of gift-giving reaches its climax.

- AP

The Invisible Hand 2: Philippe Venet

Gentle Reader -

With fashion as Big Business, it is sometimes hard to remember - or imagine - the days of haute couture's heyday. The masses who read the fashion titles know the designer names, but certainly not the names of couturiers (et oui, couturières aussi!).

Philippe Venet. Look him up. Study the images. This is homework.

There is a politeness of silhouette, as if Venet's muse never strayed very far from the exclusive worlds of the aristocratic 7th or grand bourgeois 16th in Paris - particularly after 1968. You might think this could hinder one's talent. In the case of Venet, it allowed for a flowering of a woman in a certain private world.

To put it another way, Venet could be called the Master of Discretion.

Venet's talent has never been underestimated, merely overlooked. This is both a danger and an advantage for those who pursue fashion with an Invisible Hand.

- AP

Alex Light: Fashion Themes to Ponder

Gentle Reader -


We return once again to the serene light of Alex to ponder the following:

1. Jean-Louis Scherrer: in his heyday (when he ran the house), Scherrer was code for that elusive mix of bourgeois, sensual and chic. That mix doesn't work in every time period or place, but in the 70s to mid-80s, it was right. Vintagers, that's a hint.

2. The overuse of coral: both as material and color, coral fascinates. However, it is time to give both a rest - before it factors into another trendbook...again. Can carnelian and lapis lazuli make a return?

3. Moiré: it is amazing how impressive or tragic the iridescent ripples of moiré can seem - depending on the season. Use moiré with velvet for the best effects in winter; with white in spring.

Is it just this writer, or does moiré look completely wrong in summer and autumn?

Have a great weekend.

- AP

Sphinx: Collect Alexander McQueen Now

- Alexander McQueen's recent collection is instant vintage: directional, important and well-made. Arguably the best collection of the season. There are implications in those dresses. Also, were those shoes, or futurized chopines?

- Fragrance is so much better when it is refrigerated.

- A note to fashion editors everywhere: your subscribers need you to guide them through deconstruction.

- Vintage-vintage: late 60s Hanae Mori, 1970s Cardin, 1980s Mary McFadden.

The Invisible Hand: Mainbocher

Fashion tends to remember those who make a splash or create drama through clothes. However, there are those "quiet" designers whose influence still carries on decades later. Such is the case with Mainbocher (1890-1976).

Mainbocher was a transatlantic designer, a rarity in his day, and best known for Wallis Simpson's wedding dress (when she married Edward, Duke of Windsor). Yet he also created a slim suit for his often lady-like clientele. This suit still works today, if only because it is in contrast to today's trends.

There is genius in the invisible hand a designer can use. Mainbocher's talent was to use this talent of invisibility so that only the wearer makes the impression, not the dress.

It is one of the most difficult feats to produce, particularly in today's world of fashion.

- AP

Sphinx: Masters to Collect

A sampling of areas of focus for this Tuesday:

Claude Montana for Lanvin
Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé
Mid-1980s Ferre Couture
First collections: Donna Karan, Prada
Last collections: YSL
Givenchy: 1970's Nouvelle Boutique

For some, these are pieces to collect. For others, these are designers to study further.

- AP

Paris Couture: Why Lacroix? More on Dior!

Christian Lacroix, in this writer's view, had the best collection of the recent shows. Why?

The answer isn't simple one. Surely the feeling that this might be "the end" of the House of Lacroix surely left moments of both joy and sadness. You may recall that the house recently filed for the French equivalent of bankruptcy protection.

Paul Poiret, the great couturier of the early 20th century, was in a similar predicament in the 1920's. Certainly the headscarves at the Lacroix show were eerily similar to those worn by Denise Poiret, the wife and muse of Paul Poiret during his heyday.

Really, the show was a moment: as if the grand ladies of Arles (as envisioned by Lacroix), with all of the regional splendor found in prior collections over the years, had become, surprisingly, Parisian in their dress.

In many ways, the show recalled those days when Lacroix was at Jean Patou in the 1980s. In sum, it was a bittersweet collection that showed promise for the future for the house, no matter how slim the actual chances for continuing may be.

--

Much has been made of the Dior collection, which, with its transparency and revealing of hosiery, felt a bit burlesque. That is, at first glance.

A closer study shows that it could be interpreted as a collection of separates. Given that today's woman does not dress in ensembles (one of couture's many holdovers from its glory years in the 1950s), it made complete sense to show the exquisite jackets and voluminous ball skirts as options to completed by the wearer - or by über-stylist Rachel Zoe.

- AP

Paris Couture: Fall-Winter 2009/10

If it is July, then there must be a week of haute couture. But for how long?
Consider that couture no longer pushes fashion forward. Consider that the names seem to dwindle down each season. And exactly how many couture clients are left in this era of the Great Recession?

There are those who would say that the time for very expensive dresses is completely over.

That might be the case. However, the look and feel of a dress that is made by hand, that moves with the knowledge of wearer's movement sewn into it requires years to make technique look magical. To create this kind of poetry through fabric is one of the sacred arts of the world.

Because in this world that prefers keystrokes to craft, human artistry is indeed one of those mysteries that we should preserve.

A special thanks to those couture suppliers who helped to make the Lacroix show such a beautiful gift.

- AP

Poiret

Gentle Reader -

Paul Poiret was one of those few individuals in fashion who happened to be a visionary, but not a great craftsman. What does this mean, exactly?

If you take a look at his clothing when compared to Callot Soeurs, Lanvin, or even Redfern (who remembers that name nowadays?), there is striking detail, but little technical mastership of what makes a dress, well, a dress.

However, no other person was as responsible for defining the look of the years before the Great War (World War I, for those in North America).

Poiret orientalized Parisian couture. This may not be Poiret's most significant contribution, but it is one of the more revolutionary moments in haute couture, setting the stage for YSL's references many decades later.

The best place to see Poiret's work is not up close. Rather, the illustrations of Paul Iribe define Poiret's moment when he was the Pasha of Paris.


- AP

Vintage Couture: A Perfect Dress

The lines of this Balenciaga dress are very important. Notice how the fabric skims the body while retaining a definite shape.

- AP