Maison Margiela Artisanal 

John Galliano put on a spectacle for Maison Margiela Artisanal on the last evening of the Spring/Summer season last Thursday. Nearly an hour late, the show in a venue under the Pont Alexandre III brought back the best Galliano plying his trade memories. A tour de force of couture shapes via body padding for women and newspaper boy silhouettes for men, it had all the drama in the staging merging video, venue and show to a fantasy concoction worthy of the highest form of theater performance – one of Galliano’s hallmarks. Let’s call it body-modifying couture. With this show, he could regain access to the sacred halls of Paris couture and the wider industry as the sheer force of his talent shines so brightly and begs the question why he is not back at one of the major Parisian houses? It’s clear that he has given a whole set of new codes to Margiela with his outrageous silhouettes and inventive cutting and crazy treatment of the finest of fabrics to conjure up a world of decadence where the clothes are the catalyst to ignite deeply personal visions of a seasoned couturier. The press release listed more than ten new techniques he employed to make this show including Seamlace where garments are constructed entirely from encrusted fragments of lace or Milletrage, a new technique in which featherlight layers pose as heavy-duty coats by trompe l’oeil printing. How long did it take to teach the models how to put on the perfect walk, how long did it take to put on the make-up which looked like spray painted on the models’ faces like shiny surfaces or the bird’s nest hair? Only the couturier knows and his vision and passion for dressmaking seems as contemporary as it is for Paris as it was captured by Brassaï.

Armani Privé

Arriving in Paris with strong showings for Emporio and Giorgio Armani during Milan men’s season where especially the women in Emporio stood out with their pin stripe tailoring, Armani had Gwyneth Paltrow, Hollywood royalty and the footballer Ronaldo in his front row. And just how broad his appeal for celebrities is, Armani made a collection for each and every one of his clients. The first section saw him like a painter with fancy brush strokes in his beloved pastels, followed by a tailored section and evening with fancy headwear. Most of his fabrics are shining and sparkling as there are small crystals everywhere and the clothes seem to be made for the red carpet as they will reflect any paparazzi flashbulb. The stand outs were expression of Armani’s love for the Far East, two wonderful long cardigan jacket twin sets in turquoise and orange. 

Valentino

What would Pierpaolo Piccioli follow up with after he made the best Haute Couture jeans ever last season and paraded it outside the Château de Chantilly. Of course, the jeans on Kaia Gerber were not cut from denim but made from gazar and embroidered with glass beads. Piccioli stuck to his real clothes for real clients mantra and impressed with a sober line up of maxi tailoring in delicious colors like lime or chartreuse and some uber-sexy evening wear with body cut outs and a stellar model line up where we saw our favorite Karolin Wolter have her annual comeback. 

Christian Dior

Having used couture to bring in artisans from all over the world, this time Maria Grazia Chiuri stayed close to home and was entirely dedicated to the art of dress making which was part of her early days at Valentino. Somber but oh so precise and exquisite in its usage of moiré fabrics – a first for Chiuri and found in the rich Dior archive – to formulate clear lines which speak to women all over are the signature here. In her hands, pleating is used to shape one of her White Greek goddess gowns making couture the laboratory of fashion it’s supposed to be. When Rihanna walked into the show wearing a moiré shawl collar jacket and pencil skirt, it was clear that the ancient fabric preferred by cardinals and other dignitaries had leaped into the now.

Chanel

It seems that Haute Couture brings out the best in Virginie Viard and that it’s slowly but surely becoming her specialty. With a feather light touch and a look at different codes of ballet clothes and performance outfits, she found a wonderful way to give a new expressive quality to her dress making which often eschews her ready-to-wear. The soft pastels juxtaposed with her tight white hosiery for the legs and black bodysuits for tops looked spot on.