In due time, many of the dresses shown throughout the Haute Couture collections will reappear on red carpets the world over. But you’ve got to hand it to Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, who considered how dresses might look if they were actually made from, well, red carpet. After conceiving second-skin, tattooed ballerina dresses last season, Viktor & Rolf came up with what they referred to as “a meditation on a contemporary obsession.” They wondered whether it would be possible to coerce such a rigid material into wearable volumes, describing the knotting, wrapping, and tying techniques as “spontaneous gestures.” The duo insisted that there was neither positive nor negative subtext—that the intention was “nonjudgmental.” They admitted that the idea was, quite simply, “a big challenge.”

Where other designers begin with aesthetics, Viktor & Rolf often start with language, and in this way their collections can end up projecting the esoteric cleverness that comes naturally to graduating-year fashion students. This time, however, the painstaking execution—whether shaping the pile into sculpted pleats or cutting and placing the spots with such deliberate irregularity—helped balance concept and craft. Except, that is, when the concept proved too heavy in the physical sense; keeping the material above knee-length proved more compelling than a weighty cascade of carpet down the front of a long, vaguely Renaissance frock.

The undone hair, au naturel makeup, and boyish rug-covered oxfords made clear that this was not a dissertation on Hollywood glamour. Instead, the leopard, zebra, and giraffe patterning—all hand-cut, shaved, and hand-applied to a pliant netting base—suggested primitive glamour (not to mention workmanship; these pieces took upwards of three hundred hours to complete). All those cape shapes, blankets bearing oversize bows, and sacks with well-placed arm slits are not destined for play-it-safe starlets; more likely they will be collected and, one day, exhibited. But as the models moseyed down the tapis rouge runway (supplied by Dutch manufacturer Desso) to be shot by fashion photographers rather than paparazzi, the realms folded in on each other and the medium became the message. All the while, a group of percussion students from Amsterdam provided a rhythmic soundscape from an upper balcony, clapping according to a syncopated composition by Steve Reich. They drew out the applause after the audience hurried off. It felt appropriate, if not self-congratulatory.
—Amy Verner
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Our review will be posted shortly. See the complete collection by clicking the image at left.
Runway Feed

Our review will be posted shortly. See the complete collection by clicking the image at left.
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“What is the most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.” That Susan Sontag quote provided Alexis Mabille with a starting point for his new Haute Couture collection. Mabille’s general idea was to incorporate some element of a man’s wardrobe into each of the outfits. Nothing groundbreaking as far as concepts go, but it did produce one of the designer’s most restrained and accomplished offerings in some time. First out was a “tuxedo” consisting of a double-breasted jacket and long, narrow skirt, the wool on both pieces fused with lace to create a tempting bit of peekaboo at the waist. Elsewhere, the neckline of a black lace gown was accented with lapels, and a white bib-front shirt was extended into a dress. As a rule, the more masculine the look, the more compelling it was. A frilly dress embroidered with naive parrots on a vine lost the plot. But an emerald green strapless number, the torso of which was built like a jacket with lapels peeled back to reveal the creamy satin corset underneath? We’d bet Mabille’s star client Dita Von Teese already has that one on hold. It put proof to the Sontag maxim, and then some.
—Nicole Phelps
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Our review will be posted shortly. See the complete collection by clicking the image at left.
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One of the highlights of this week’s Couture schedule is sure to be the opening of the Musée Galliera’s new show, Les Années 50, La Mode en France 1947-1957, curated by the fashion savant Olivier Saillard. In a timely coincidence, Donatella Versace revisited the decade for her Atelier Versace collection tonight. That starting point marks a departure for the designer, who has lately found muses in the likes of Lady Gaga and Grace Jones, and inspiration from more contemporary reference points, like nineties grunge.

Donatella’s fifties, of course, were different from the Galliera’s fifties. Her round-shouldered, boned-waist jacket featured a strategic cutout at the shoulder with a gold buckle to suspend it in place. A slit-front bustier dress, meanwhile, was a dress in name only; one of the legs of the model who wore it was covered with a pant. These were among the strongest looks in the collection, confidently executed and rigorously structured. In some ways, they were the polar opposite of the navel-baring, slit-up-to-there tropical-print dress of Donatella’s that Jennifer Lopez wore to the Grammys back in 2000, simultaneously cementing both divas’ places in red-carpet history. Lopez was in the front row tonight, poured into a strapless corseted gown with gold buckles at the hip. But if Versace’s techniques are more sophisticated now, it was and always will be about flaunting the assets at this house.

Also percolating was the notion of taking something as simple and everyday as the T-shirt and rendering it haute by covering it in crystals and beads and draping it into an hourglass evening dress. Side by side, these dresses didn’t have the precision of the opening numbers—though perhaps because of that fact, they will be fun and sexy to wear. A few fringed pieces made from crinoline, with fine strips of patent leather embroidered on top, somewhat muddled the message.

For the finale, it was back to the fifties, but as before, with a generous tweak. A powdery pink silk-duchesse satin ball gown came slit up the middle, fully revealing the black Swarovski crystal bodysuit it was strapped and buckled to. “I am Versace,” the designer said beforehand, explaining the piece’s brazen cut and construction. “I have to show it to the world.”
—Nicole Phelps
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