Can Can and Punk Couture at Jean Paul Gaultier
When I was a child and throughout my teens I would draw almost every day. I would spend hours coming up with different outfits on models and concoct the most elaborate garments from my imagination for the girls in my pictures. I didn’t think anything of it, I wanted to be a vet, drawing fashion was simply my most enjoyable pass time.
It was only recently when an old friend showed me a book I made for her in high school that it seemed so obvious I was possibly always destined to work in fashion. When the kids in school were playing or writing silly notes to each other I was drawing fashion models and ‘designing’ outfits all day long. It is funny to think that I never even knew I was obsessed with fashion from a very early age and that only in the last few years did I realise it was something I HAD to be involved in. My parents are very creative but no one I knew was interested or even knew anything about fashion, it was my very own magical world to play in.
To me, Haute Couture is the closest it gets to bringing back those memories of complete joy and the exhilarating feelings I had from doing my drawings as a kid. It is the imaginary land where anything is possible, where art and beauty is brought to life. For every girl and every boy who is truly in love with fashion – Couture is where it all begins.
In a way I suppose it is because of this that my biggest pet peeve is when journalists, unauthorised labels and designers use the word Couture to describe a brand or garment that, well, simply isn’t. It goes against the wonder that is the real Haute Couture of today. So to those of you out there who are guilty of this, once and for all, take heed!
The Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture dictates that Haute Couture houses must employ at least twenty full-time technical people in their workshop and present at least fifty original designs to press in Paris during the Spring Summer season collections (shown in January) and the Autumn Winter collections (in July).
Enjoy the splendour!
Bommyknocker handbags at Jean Paul Gaultier
A little bit space age, a little bit Sci-fi and as liquefied as can be.
Sci-fi hats designed by Philip Treacy.
love the clear accessories!sticks to recent tradition and presents girls in designs born from the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Galliano’s inspiration focused on illustrator René Gruau during the era when his art was at the helm of Dior.
Keep reading for Chanel, Elie Saab, Givenchy, Valentino. Click below…
The best way of seeing how luminous Chanel’s garments sent down the runway were is by looking at the dress coming onto the catwalk in the background of this shot. Ten million beads were sewn into embroidery to make the material (not fabric) as shiny and incandescent as light itself. Not many of the runway shots do it justice.
An entirely beaded Chanel jacket juxtaposes the textured fabric of this dress.
Givenchy.
Riccardo Tisci was inspired by Japan, robot toys, the colour of dried flowers, and the late dancer Kazuo Ohno who became his muse.
The wild hats were designed by Philip Treacy.
