While the biannual couture shows in Paris remain the most exclusive of all the fashion weeks, the schedule hasn’t been short of controversies or thrills. Here’s Vogue’s round-up of couture’s most haute drama moments.
#1: Karl Lagerfeld’s first Chanel show (Chanel Haute Couture autumn/winter 1983)
Model in Chanel at spring/summer 1999 fashion show in Paris. Image: Getty
For more than three decades, Karl Lagerfeld has presided over Chanel as creative director. In 1983, when first charged with bringing the house into the modern era, the designer admitted he initially found couture frustratingly slow (according to WWD reports). Today, Lagerfeld’s Chanel epitomises what audiences around the world love about couture, the quintessential fashion escapism; in 1983, however, his modern vision was met with more than a few raised eyebrows from critics.
#2: All that glitters is Gianni (Versace Atelier Couture autumn/winter 1995)
Gianni Versace and Kate Moss at the Versace fall/winter 1995-96 fashion show in Paris. Image: Getty
While once upon a time, couture presentations were a polite shopping expedition for well-heeled upper class women, Gianni Versace’s high-voltage shows at Atelier Versace in the 1990s were a noisy, starry affair. Audiences josselled for a front row view of the “Versace experience” and applause broke out after every shimmering look of the AW95 couture collection – a masterclass in fashion history, capturing the era’s hedonism in every twinkling rhinestone – made its way down the runway on a supermodel muse. Deservedly so. The Versace couture woman was undoubtedly flashbulb-ready, primed for Hollywood’s red carpets rather than Paris’s Bal de Débutantes.
#3: Larger than life (Christian Dior Couture spring/summer 2003)
Model in a creation designed by John Galliano for Christian Dior spring/summer 2003 in Paris. Image: Getty
When the bi-annual couture shows rolled around in the 2000s, John Galliano’s Christian Dior catwalk proved to be the epicentre of theatricality. The British designer, who took the helm at Dior in 1996, emboldened his atelier and the clothes got wild. Nowhere more so than the spring/summer 2003 couture collection: “In Galliano’s hands, the vivid colours and patterns of Chinese costume and Japanese kimonos got transformed into some of the hugest clothes ever invented,” Sarah Mower reported for American Vogue. “Models, almost completely submerged in cocooning swaths of brocade, taffeta and exploding chiffon flounces, teetered along on vertiginous platforms.”
#4: Kate Moss blooms (YSL Couture spring/summer 1993)
Kate Moss in Yves Saint Laurent at spring/summer 1993 fashion show in Paris. Image: Getty
1993 was a big year for supermodel-in-the-making, Kate Moss. The star’s first Vogue cover (for British Vogue) would hit shelves in March, by which time she’d already graced the Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture spring/summer 1993 catwalk wearing a romantic bouquet of floral prints that were nothing short of intoxicating.
#5: Chanel’s couture LBD (Chanel Couture spring/summer 1994)
Naomi Campbell in Chanel at fall/winter 1994 fashion show in Paris. Image: Rex Features
An enormous dress isn’t mandatory for a Vogue-worthy couture moment, an enormous hat is. Naomi Campbell’s Chanel Haute Couture LBD, styled with sheer gloves and oversized marabou hat was a game changer back in 1994.
#6: Thierry Mugler’s robot woman (Mugler Couture autumn/winter 1995)
Model in a creation by Thierry Mugler from his autumn/ winter 1995 collection. Image: Getty
The cyborg suit created by Thierry Mugler for his autumn/winter 1995 couture show was received as “a frightening and tantalising image for the dawn of the Internet age” by Vogue – which is no mean feat. Later that year the one-of-a-kind art piece went on to be immortalised by Helmut Newton for American Vogue’s November 1995 issue in the magazine’s cult ‘Machine Age’ fashion story.
#7: David Bowie by way of Dior (Dior Couture spring/summer 2015)
Models walk the runway for Christian Dior spring/summer 2015 fashion show in Paris. Image: Getty
Mix Raf Simons with couture and you get something edgier than an ordinary fashion romance. Mix Raf Simons with David Bowie and couture, and you get a triumphant collection of thigh-high patent boots and second-skin printed catsuits. As then Vogue critic Tim Blanks noted after the show: “[Simons] is keen to create connections for couture that wire it to the wider world.” Those boots naturally became an overnight sell-out success.
#8: Bella Hadid walking on water (Fendi couture autumn/winter 2016)
Model Bella Hadid walks the runway at Fendi’s 90th anniversary show at Fontana di Trevi on July 7, 2016 in Rome, Italy. Image: Getty
For Fendi’s ‘Legends and Fairy Tales’ 90th anniversary show, Karl Lagerfeld took inspiration from the illustrations of Danish artist Kay Nielsen in 1914 children’s book, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Fantasy did indeed become reality: We’ll remember this as the moment models walked on water (well, a transparent catwalk staged over Rome’s Trevi Fountain).
#9: Alexander McQueen’s mythology (Givenchy Haute Couture spring/summer 1997)
Model in Givenchy at spring/summer 1997 fashion show in Paris. Image: Getty
Shortly after British designer Alexander McQueen unveiled his debut couture collection for Givenchy, he revealed feelings that the show had not lived up to his own expectations. History, on the other hand, remembers a couture debut that was a startlingly elegant and mythological play on the house codes.
#10: Birds of internet paradise (Valentino Couture autumn/winter 2018)
Kaia Gerber walks the runway for Valentino at fall/ winter 2018-2019 fashion show in Paris. Image: Getty
You’ve no doubt already seen pictures of the pink feathery Valentino couture gown that broke the internet twice in 2018. Model of the moment Kaia Gerber was the first to sport Pierpaolo Piccioli’s masterpiece during Valentino’s autumn/winter 2018 couture show, leaving even hardened fashion editors in awe (and in some cases teary-eyed). Lady Gaga’s people were quick to leap on the look, securing the gown for the A Star Is Born red carpet at the Venice Film Festival. Cue internet meltdown #2.
#11: Going dotty for Armani (Giorgio Armani Couture autumn/winter 2014)
Model in Giorgio Armani at fall/winter 2014-2015 fashion show during in Paris. Image: Getty
When Mr Armani’s atelier turn their hand to polka dots, they deliver a galaxy capable of making the Milky Way blush. No big historical backstory here, just a perfect moment of dreamlike beauty.
#12: Schiaparelli’s 1930s salons
Schiaparelli couture show from the 1930s in Schiaparelli Haute Couture Salons 21 place Vendome –Paris. Image: Schiparelli
Rome-born designer Elsa Schiaparelli’s haute couture salons during the 1930s may look like a sedate affair compared to today’s swarming shows – but her Paris base at 21 Place Vendôme is still a hallowed spot. This was the decade that Schiaparelli collaborated with Salvador Dalí to create the lobster dress – worn by Wallis Simpson in Vogue in 1937. And while to modern audiences the pairing of an artist and fashion designer is a relatively regular occurrence, back then it was groundbreaking. Greta Garbo, no less, was a fan.
#13: Renegade denim (Gaultier Couture spring/summer 1999)
Model in patchwork denim gown by Jean Paul Gaultier at spring/summer 1999 fashion show in Paris. Image: Getty
In his eponymous spring/summer 1999 couture show, French designer Jean Paul Gaultier parted ways with convention, sending a single patchwork denim gown (complete with feathered train) down his runway, a look markedly different from the other gilded pieces in the collection. Gaultier’s secret to standing out at the ball? Flout the dress code.
#14: Linda as the Chanel bride (Chanel Haute Couture autumn/winter 2003)
Canadian model Linda Evangelista in the wedding gown by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel at autumn/winter 2003-04 collection in Paris. Image: Getty
It wouldn’t be a couture greatest hits list if we didn’t finish with a bride. Enter Linda Evangelista, the woman behind countless iconic Chanel catwalk moments, seen here closing the house’s autumn/winter 2003 couture show in true super style.
The post 14 couture moments that went down in fashion history appeared first on VOGUE India.
from Fashion – VOGUE India http://bit.ly/2TgqSvW
No comments:
Post a Comment