Shaping A New Couture

Fall 2010 Collections

“I want to make the arch of the shoes at such an angle and height that this very high heel will help to lift the model as if she were much taller,” said the Dutch designer Jan Taminiau as he pulled out a triangular, sharply-pointed wooden heel—at least 14 inches high with silver metallic beads on the side—from the cardboard boxes just unloaded from the van he drove to Paris from Amsterdam. 

“How can anyone walk in these?” I asked. Six other similar pairs were already laid on the table. 

“Well, I have to bring in the models from Amsterdam for the show as they have been practicing walking on these shoes for a week now,” he said. “I know it’s impractical, but when you see each of the girls going down the runway, these shoes really help to make the silhouette of the dress looks more powerful and elongated. These shoes will give that perfect pitch to each outfit.” 

“They will have to tip-toe as if their feet were bound,” I said, inspecting the tiny base of these platform shoes, which would have to hold the bulk of the wearer’s body weight.

It was a particularly hot early evening on the 4th of July, a Sunday, in Paris on the eve of the biannual haute couture shows taking place over the next three days. I watched as Mr. Taminiau’s assistant unloaded, from the truck, boxes containing the 19 looks for his eighth collection showing.

In 2001, Taminiau graduated from the Academy of Art in Arnhem and pursued a master’s degree at the Fashion Institute of Arnhem while working as an apprentice for Olivier Theyskens, Oscar Süleyman, Hubert Barrère, and Hurel. He presented his master’s program project, “Unfolding,” during couture week in January 2003, followed by a window installation at the Colette shop in Paris. “I am just trying to reveal my world and my visions through the collections without any restrictions,” he said of the couture collections he had presented in Paris since 2007. 

Based on the concept of “reflections,” this collection’s tight cut, V-shape silhouetted outfits—a nude chiffon, pagoda-shouldered, sequin-sleeved sheath dress; an ice blue, one-sleeved (with a metal shoulder) chiffon side-slit long dress, embroidered with a degradé of transparent Swarovski crystals; a long gown with organza falling from the sculpted metal shoulders to form a flare tied at the bottom seam; and a nude metal knit collared top with a chiffon jacket and a long silk crêpe skirt—emphasize how old ideas of couture can be integrated into today’s contemporary fashion and culture by adapting techniques, finding new shapes, and using new materials. On the table next to the shoes were metal hats with attached horsehair tails.   

“So, couture is mainly about experimentation?” I asked, glancing at the metal hats, their tops sliced open to reveal the wearer’s head. 

“I try to construct each silhouette meticulously to achieve a new shape or a new form through unconventional techniques using specially weaved fabrics. Nowadays, there’s too much fast fashion. There’s a need for the respect of traditional craftsmanship.” 

To hear a 35-year-old designer revel in the return of craft in the age of immediate fashion is truly admirable. To witness craftsmanship on display at the Musée Rodin the next day where Dior had erected a white tent in the courtyard for a smaller than usual audience—which included the actress Jessica Alba wearing a strapless hand-painted white-and-pink floral dress and Blake Lively in a white knit sheath—is to understand why couture matters now more than ever.  

Inspired by Mr. Dior’s spring 1953 “Tulip” collection of floaty and colorful floral dresses, John Galliano’s version featured a purple fringe coat with petal lapels; a white A-line short sleeve jacket with a purple blossom-embroidered skirt; a hand-painted, deep-blue-and-purple tropical flower dress complete with a leaf belt; a black taffeta dress with pieces of degradé chiffon coming out on the side like a bouquet; and a long, rose red, “3-D” column dress. Against the backdrop of gigantic green leaves, with orange tulips scattered on the runway, Mr. Galliano rendered the complicated structure and folding of a flower—specifically orchids, poppies, and crocuses—through the handiwork techniques of fronding, ruching, fringing, draping, and layering. Have you ever examined a flower at extreme close range? Do so and you will experience what Galliano made in the light mauve tulip dress worn by Jessica Stam. The vibrant color and the show’s energy were exciting, but more so was the smell of something new: the clothes on the runway appeared to mimic the 3-D of the movie theater.   

Criticized in recent past collections for not straying far from the comfort zone of the house’s archives, this time Mr. Galliano utilized an idea from the past only to cultivate or suggest a way of unique dressing and clothes that would influence fashion at a broader level. Couture is extreme fashion rather than anything readily consumable. Noting that couture sales had increased over 80% from its January collection causing a production problem for the atelier, Dior’s CEO Sidney Toledano predicted that sales from this show would shift even higher as customers returned from the economic crisis.

The 40-foot tall sculpture of a golden lion, roaring as its right paw rested on a sphere resembling a white pearl—the centerpiece on the stage of Chanel’s show at the Grand Palais—symbolized the house’s unique position in couture. In an interview with WWD, Bruno Pavlovsky, the President of Fashion at Chanel, confirmed that couture sales had increased 20 to 30% this year as an influx of new key clients from Eastern Europe—in addition to the established Russian, Chinese, American, and Middle Eastern clients—had placed orders. Looking at the first, say, 25 looks from this show—a boxy, maroon wool jacket and skirt; a cropped, pocketed plaid jacket balanced with a chiffon blouse and either a long flare or a khaki tweed skirt; and a black, cropped tweed jacket matched with a fluid skirt, all variations of the classic tweed skirt-suit, reworked according to this season’s mood—it’s pretty clear where Chanel’s bread-and-butter lies. This time, Mr. Lagerfeld altered the proportion of the suit, pairing the shorter-sleeved cropped jacket over a high-waisted skirt, and, in effect, merging the jacket and skirt visually into a single garment. It was especially notable in the charcoal puffy-sleeved, fur-trimmed jacket with skirt worn by Siri Tollerod. 

But Mr. Lagerfeld employs new techniques every season. Here, the very fragile chiffon fabrics were embroidered with small sequins. This was done, for instance, to the blue-and-black, diamonds-and-stripes-patterned sleeveless tank and a long skirt that sparkled and at the same time felt light. Surprisingly, and with no fanfare, there was an absence of large gowns in the Chanel show, a dearth of those ubiquitious ball-gowns that are a familiar sight for any couture collection. Clearly, Chanel has found a way to move couture forward as a business (and as a critical entity) each season. It is an institution enabling new directions for fashion.  

Proportion, too, was the focus of Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chuiri’s collection for Valentino, where they proposed jackets with super-short skirts and A-line babydoll dresses, destined for a new generation of Valentino girls while maintaining the essence of the house. (Notable were the wool suits with bow closures; the short red strapless dress with ruffles; and the long white lace-embroidered dress.) The duo utilized their Rome couture atelier to great effect, crafting a nude organza skeletal bubble cage over a gazar strapless dress, as well as a large white organza rose sewn onto a strapless dress. Slowly but surely, they seemed to have found their own voice within the heavy and ornate heritage of the house.  

In lieu of a runway show, Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy opted for a large-scale photographic still life exhibition showing the front and back views of the line up, shot by Willy Vanderperre, and a model presentation of 10 looks inspired by Frida Kahlo. Perhaps the most elaborate and detailed ornamentation work seen at any Paris couture house this season, each look encompassed some of Mr. Tisci’s lace, degradé fabrics and the effects of fringing. Take, for instance, the white skeletal-structured Chantilly lace dress adorned with embroidered leather mimicking the pattern of the lace and fringed with long white feathers. This fit neatly into the presentation alongside a long gold dress embroidered with gold sequins, Swarovski crystals, and beads, as well as the black patchwork leather coat and embroidered lace dress that degraded from black to white as its feather embellishments hit the floor. There was an absolute precision to each look that exuded the old couture spirit.  

When Karlie Kloss opened Jean-Paul Gaultier’s show in a black gabardine trench, belted at the waist, albeit with wing flaps attached to the sides, it was clear that Mr. Gaultier had returned to his hometown after several seasons of taking us to Mexico, Russia, or any other exotic destinations. If any designer’s work is synonymous to Paris fashion, it’s Mr. Gaultier.  

In an ode to Parisian elegance, the designer brought out his signature looks from over the years—the wool pinstriped double-breasted pantsuit with the gray fox head scarf; the stretch wool side-zippered pantsuit with mink cone breasts and ass pads; the lamb leather bomber with coyote trims paired with a velvet skirt; the black wool jacket with exaggerated ‘80s shoulders topping sequined pants—and often exaggerated their proportions. The most striking deliveries were a single-puff shouldered wool tuxedo dress and a very wide shouldered sleeveless tuxedo jumpsuit that resembled the shape of a football jersey, but with a black chiffon overlay. Like the iconic images of French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir, the models wore twisted turbans on their heads and Eiffel Tower patterned hosiery.

Perhaps, now free from the Hermès day job, Mr. Gaultier can concentrate on how to translate his career’s œuvre into strengthening his couture business. The black silk gabardine sleeveless sheath with pointed shoulders and attached chiffon cape points to a renaissance. 

Alexandre Vauthier told me the day after his show ended: “It’s really a difference of nomenclature rather than it is in reality.” This was in response to a query as to whether he thought young designers like him are concerned about the couture/ready-to-wear duality. “You have to actually look at the products. And in terms of products, you have to try and make the best design, the best fabrics, and so forth.” He quickly produced a white stretch silk-and-wool dress from the rack in his showroom on a side street not far from Faubourg Saint-Denis. “Remember that, in the 1950s, fashion was only couture.” 

“And Paris has been and will remain the only place that can fabricate couture?” I asked. 

“Paris is the only place,” he replied, “because of the resources and the people here. I make everything in Paris because: for the best embroider, I have to go to Lesage; for feathers, it’s Lemarié; and so forth. I use lace and crêpe from local French fabricants. There are people with the traditional knowledge of making clothes here.”

When he came to Paris at the age of 20, Mr. Vauthier, a former law student, had his eyes firmly on fashion. After working for four years with Thierry Mugler, then four years as head designer of Gaultier’s couture collection, his debut show in January 2009 instantly established a very specific look—extremely exaggerated shoulder treatments, very deep V-necklines (some to the navel), and an interplay of structures and fluidity. 

When Jessica Stam emerged from behind a shifting wall of flashing, patterned lights to open the show—set in the basement conference room of the Institut du Monde Arabe—she came out wearing a voluminous black ostrich chubby. By the time she closed the show with a short pagoda-shouldered, gold-sequined wrap dress to loud beats of dance club music, it was apparent that, within a short time, Mr. Vauthier has become firmly in command and confident of his fashion identity. This collection, titled “Geometry,” showed his mastery of fashion’s architectures and couture techniques learned from Mugler and Gaultier: witness the pencil wool sheath dress with a circular fur cape; the belted white wool dress with giant black fur sleeves; the white wool dress with a chiffon overlay; and the purple silk, to-the-navel neckline dress with cutout sleeves. The black strapless crêpe dress with shoulder bolero and flyaway sleeves was another standout. 

“I am developing the business step by step,” said Vauthier. “I would like to make more pieces but it’s a question of budgets as each sample costs a great deal. Au Bon Marché has bought the collections since the first time, and the collections are selling better and better. I have also started to sell my couture dresses online.”

“How?” 

“I have received inquiries online for a while now from clients in different parts of the world. They would send me the exact measurements of their body, and I would make the dress and send it to them,” he replied. 

“I really have never heard of Internet couture sales. So, you make the dress according to specifications? Can the client choose the fabrics?” I asked. 

“I have about ten clients who buy from the Internet, and they have been buying for a year now,” Vauthier responded. “They buy the show looks made according to their measurements.”

“Are you keeping the silhouette moving forward?” I asked as I handled the white dress with giant black bolero. 

“Absolutely,” he said. “I love the shape. I don’t work on trendy fashion for the moment. So, I will work to develop this silhouette further.”

La crise, as the French succinctly ascribed to the current malaise, impounds couture in the harshest and most unforgiving manner. The recession not only exacerbates couture’s decline, but also questions its validity and relevance. Against overwhelming odds of survival in the deepest crisis in recent memory, justifying the cost of a couture gown, no matter what, is surely nonsensical. 

Diminished, but not entirely destitute, couture has been on a long, slow march back from the brink. For the big houses like Chanel and Dior, couture remains a strategic enterprise, instilling the brand with authority and fashion leadership, even if it’s not a separate sustainable commercial entity. As the three-day shows ended and the hot summer continued in Paris, I sensed a new energy coming from the young designers working on and showing collections outside the establishment. Most had zeal, determination, and courage in their convictions: there was a spirit that seemed absent in Paris for a few seasons. Jan Taminiau talked about realizing his collection according to his specific vision no matter how impractical, and Alexandre Vauthier told me about the potential of web sales. I am certain they—along with their young contemporaries—are changing couture’s landscape and identity.