Azzedine Alaia – the cream of the Couture crop

Modelled by Toni Garm

Paris Couture week is over. The big houses exhibited – Dior, Chanel, Valentino, Givenchy & Jean Paul Gaultier. Other stalwarts too such as Saab and Simoens among this select coterie of couturiers and it was Tunisian High Fashion King Azzedine Alaia with his first show since 2003 on Thursday July 7 that most impressed me.

Modelled by Maria Kashleva

Unlike Chanel this was a compact collection – a mere twenty-five pieces. Like that house black also predominated with a notable fuschia colour presence too along with green.

And everything worked as a piece and as a whole – the colours, the materials, the tailoring, the prints – not that I would extend this metaphor to a symphonic outcome – rather a chamber piece. No bombast here.

Perhaps too there is a lesson in only showing at such a lax time frequency – no burn out, time to let ideas percolate and take deep form, if time too to let fashion pass you by, so a brave choice in this endless evolving catwalk. But again if your work aspires to the timeless then time should not pass it by…

I could not find a website for his work either outside directory listings in Style, Fashion Model Directory and the like – the man is just perverse!

Nevertheless I hope not to be waiting until 2019 to witness the Alaia high fashion experience again!

He is an acolyte of Madame Gres – this show was a lasting testament to her.

Related articles

• Azzedine Alaïa Haute Couture | Paris Fall 2011 Couture (modedimitri.wordpress.com)
• COUTURE – Fall 2011: Azzedine Alaïa (chellibeans.wordpress.com)
• Azzedine Alaïa (style.com)