With its deluge of muslin and its flights of tulle, haute couture always seems out of time, a bubble where everything is luxury, handmade and voluptuous, to the point of seeming exclusive, even a little tart… For their collections spring-summer 2023, presented in Paris from January 23 to 26, the designers showed concern for the fate of the world, raising in their own way the political issues of the time, evoking colonialism, totalitarian regimes or the climate crisis.
Dior has, as often, asked an artist for the decor – this time, the American Mickalene Thomas, whose work questions questions of gender, race or sexuality. She has designed large collage portraits of thirteen black or mixed-race female personalities who have overcome racial barriers. “The idea was to create an eclectic group of extraordinary personalities, explains the artist. All of these women have accomplished incredible feats that justify this celebration. »
Among them, Donyale Luna and Naomi Sims, who were among the first African-American models, or Dorothy Dandridge, the first black woman to be nominated for the Oscar for best actress. The collection is centered on one of these black heroines, Josephine Baker. The singer, actress and resistance fighter, who was a client of Christian Dior, inspired Maria Grazia Chiuri to create an entire wardrobe, from the bathrobe worn over underwear in the theater dressing room to the costume for the stage, including city attire.
The result is an effective collection, in a narrow color palette (black, ivory, pearl grey, gold, bronze). There is sensuality in these crumpled velvet sheaths flowing over the skin, vitality in the rhinestone fringes of the dresses that sway to the rhythm of footsteps, elegance in these broad-shouldered Bar jackets. “Josephine Baker understood the power of clothes, says the artistic director. Dressing in haute couture – and not just at Dior – helped her shed the colonialist gaze that her contemporaries might cast on her. To assume as a talented artist. »
It is also a question of feminist struggle in Iris van Herpen. The Dutch started her reflection this season in front of the television. “I have followed the women’s uprisings in Iran a lot, amazed at their strength. I tried to imagine an ode for them. » Since the creator was keen on staging in water, “that space where you are forced to lose your voice”it is in video format, more adequate, that it presents the result.
In water 50 meters deep, we see the French freediver Julie Gautier as a jellyfish or coral woman, undulating in an openwork silk or polyester dress, but also in a dress composed of hair dyed red – the setting front of the hair being here a sign of solidarity towards the Iranian movement. “You have to make people dream, but also make sure that fashion has substance”says Iris van Herpen.
Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, of the Viktor & Rolf label, worked with their heads buried in their smartphones. “There is now such a gap between images and reality, they notice. We go from an advert for a holiday destination to a photo of a climate catastrophe, from a recipe for a cake to the ravages of war…” It is this absurdity that they wanted to retranslate.
It begins with a caricature, debutantes in monumental tulle dresses, with a bow at the waist, frills and small sequined heels. Then, little by little, the duo turns everything upside down, as if they were indulging in a Photoshop montage: the dress becomes offset from the body, it floats in the air next to the model in her underwear. On other silhouettes, it is found horizontal or radically reversed at 180 degrees. A snub in 3D on the diversion of screens.
The meaning of the party deconstructed
At Yuima Nakazato, the atmosphere is much more solemn. His models in wooden-soled boots stroll slowly over a printed carpet where we see images of a dump of clothes and waste, taken in Kenya. “I went there in October [2022] and I discovered all the aspects of the country: the beauty of the colors and traditional outfits, but also the climatic disaster and the waste of overconsumption”says the 38-year-old Japanese.
Her black and white outfits are sometimes wrapped in multicolored muslin that winds around the bust and is enhanced by copper-coloured jewelry in Masai-style ceramics; her millefeuille dresses and capes suggest the accumulation of textile surpluses, when the ocher tone of certain silhouettes was obtained from a “mountain stone of Kenya”crushed in order to exploit it in a dye. “This trip alerted me to global warming and I hope that my work will relay it”defends Nakazato.
More joyful, AZ Factory, the brand founded by Alber Elbaz, launched into a colorful drag show whose superheroines (like Paloma, the winner of “Drag Race France”, as a detective flanked by her cat, named Albert) joke, sing, strip or swallow fire. An entertaining showcase for the creations of beginner Tennessy Thoreson, who boasts of the freedom to subvert the adulterated codes of the genre with jumpsuits or feathered or bustier dresses, with marked shoulders, accompanied by oversized hats.
The deconstructed party, as a place of tolerance, is also on the menu of the Valentino show. Called “Valentino Le Club Couture”, the collection is a tribute to the culture of clubbing. “You can be whoever you want in a nightclub, no matter your background or your gender. Sewing has long been disconnected, especially from the younger generation. Here, it is for everyone, it allows you to express your personality »details artistic director Pierpaolo Piccioli.
And personality, there is through the long rustling black satin dresses, the braided raffia maxi-capelines, the bustier dresses stitched with rhinestones and pearls, or the silk tank tops encrusted with lace. The sequins sparkle, the bright colors catch the eye, and the platform shoes – which are difficult to walk on however – add an almost dancing swaying gait. A highly extravagant collection.
Does a fashion show raise awareness? “Let’s be honest: in this world in disrepair, doing a fashion show is almost an ethical fault”, cowardly Ronald van der Kemp. The Dutchman, whose signature is to ennoble recycled materials, nevertheless allows himself a very punk parade at the Dutch embassy. To hell with interchangeable mannequins! Models are now “personalities, only people who I think can have a positive impact”.
Thus, in an excessive collection where glamor voluntarily flirts with grunge monstrosity, tumbling engaged models or drag artists in evening dresses or leather harnesses embroidered with ceramics. A fringed black leather sheath comes to life on the slender body of Loïc Chave, who is in the city in charge of mission with the defender of rights on LGBT + issues, when a duchess coat comes alive on Roebyem Anders, a social and environmental entrepreneur . A playful way to combine shapes with substance.
