RUSSIA 2015 DESIGNER COLLECTIONS

Spring Couture collection 2015

Ulyana Sergeenko

Ulyana Sergeenko

Nicole Phelps 

January 27, 2015
http://www.style.com/

After five seasons on the haute couture runway, Ulyana Sergeenko presented her new collection in a salon at Le Bristol hotel today. The optics of the situation weren't so hot: Untrained Russian ingenue makes a big, expensive splash complete with an endorsement from model Natalia Vodianova, only to be forced to downsize a couple of years later. That said, the one-on-one appointment is probably how Sergeenko, whose design experience is in inverse proportion to her ambition, should've gotten her brand off the ground in the first place. If there's a bright spot in Russia's ruble crisis for her, it's that she's found a setup that suits not just her fledgling business but also her aesthetic.

Sergeenko likes to reference specific eras of Russian history. She's an ambassador not just for her country but also for its traditions, employing upward of 100 people whose handwork is often native to the region. This season, she explained, she chose Russian neighbors Georgia and Armenia as points of departure. True to form, the embellishments were exquisite, and at times mind-numbingly minute. Crisscross stripes on a pale blue dress weren't printed but embroidered with narrow bands of tulle hand-stitched in place, ironed, and accented at the intersections with tiny crystals. In some cases the fabric of a garment itself was embroidered all over. Why make tiny white stitches by the thousand when selecting a piece of white silk might do? Why not?

The attention to detail was impressive, but more than that, Sergeenko has eased some of the beginner's excesses out of her system. The best pieces—a strapless waffle silk dress with an emerald green velvet lining at the scalloped hem, an unstructured midnight blue frock with a draped cutout at the midriff and a pair of high slits—didn't verge into costume territory but retained a strong sense of place. 

 

Zuhair Murad

Amy Verner 

January 29, 2015
http://www.style.com/

Zuhair Murad's Spring Couture collection was an evocation of water, which played out as a spectacle of gowns that dripped with beading and frothed along the runway. Indeed, he seemed to play up every possible design metaphor: rippling embroidery, pleating in waves around the waist, Watteau backs mimicking waterfalls, whirlpools of tulle at the shoulders, plunging necklines, a swimsuit bodice with a crystal-encrusted mermaid overlay, and, as if that weren't enough, embellished boatnecks. By the show's midpoint, those in attendance had gotten the drift.

Yet to Murad's credit, no two creations were entirely alike. And two outliers were particularly pretty in the way they combined pale blue printed and embroidered flowers atop a peach silk organza base and bore little relation to the theme. Another dress stood out because its bobbing back ruffle did not float with the lightness on display elsewhere. The penultimate look, a jumpsuit with a cascading skirt, could be a compelling red-carpet contender.

Murad's audience consists heavily of regular clients—many flying in from Beirut, where he is based—and they often signal their approval with applause. This season, they singled out a cocktail dress with delicately embellished and scalloped batwing sleeves. The clapping also swelled for the fairy-tale wedding gown inspired by One Thousand and One Nights. The enormous train measured 5-by-5 meters and followed the model like a tide retreating from the shore. Thankfully, she was not required to steer herself around upon reaching the end of the runway. 

Viktor & Rolf

Amy Verner 

January 28, 2015
http://www.style.com/

Every look in Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren's haute couture collection originated from the same three elements: a floral-print baby-doll dress with smocked detailing, a pair of flip-flops, and a straw hat. But the duo did not so much explore this country-gal typology as mutate, amplify, and explode it. So outsize was this feat—a slo-mo Flowerbomb, to borrow from their best-selling fragrance—that before the show even began, three dresses had been purchased by the art collector and patron Han Nefkens, who will donate them to Rotterdam's Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. To be sure, they will look better in an exhibition than on the red carpet.

The designers worked with Vlisco, a Dutch company dating back to 1846 that specializes in batik-style, wax-dyed, and block-printed textiles widely popular in West and Central Africa. The opening version of the A-line dress, propped up by an exaggerated petticoat of silk organza, appeared like a coloring book—unfilled and outlined in inky blue. With this baseline established, each subsequent surrealist creation materialized into a hallucination of dimension and color: Flower cutouts with knotted stamens lifted from the fabric in voluminous clusters, while other flowers drifted off the dresses entirely, extending upward until they were supported by the headgear. Even the indigo outlines turned 3-D, dangling off the hems as embroidery. All the while, straw sheaves stretched the width of the runway thanks to carbon fiber reinforcements, forcing the models to sidestep past one another in a dance-like acknowledgment of this madcap moment.

But rather than whimsy—Chanel's greenhouse of mechanical flowers and futuristic incrustations ticked that box yesterday—the designers steered the mood toward madness, scoring their somber parade with a remix of that haunting "la la la la" from Rosemary's Baby. They mentioned being struck by the "raw energy" of van Gogh's landscapes, citing his quote: "I put my heart and my soul into my work and have lost my mind in the process." Ah, yes, the struggle of any creative person well aware that memorable output does not result from apathy. But as the collection implied, one does not go from zero to unhinged in a heartbeat: It was the degrees in between that gave this undertaking such depth.

 

Valentino

Nicole Phelps

January 28, 2015
http://www.style.com/

 

Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli are in the mood for love. Their inspiration board was lined with quotes from Shakespeare, bits and pieces of Dante's Inferno, and the paintings of Marc Chagall, hopeless romantics all. Chagall, in particular, captivated them. "He had an incredible life, very hard, but he maintained his optimistic vision," Piccioli said. The painter's Russian ancestry provided a leitmotif for the embellishments that are so central to the designers' aesthetic. There were leather flowers appliquéd to rough-hewn linen, naive needlepoint embroideries on long pinafores worn over smocked shirts, and a shearling vest densely decorated with leather paillettes. The Russian pieces were far from humble, but their craftiness pointed to the differences between Chiuri and Piccioli's version of the brand and that of its founder. In this case, at least, they wanted for a touch of Valentino's glamour.

"In some ways, you are flying when you are in love," Chiuri said, apropos of a pair of tulle gowns, one embroidered with rainbows and the other with clouds of silver lamé. It was a beautiful sentiment, and we commend her for expressing herself so earnestly. Sincerity of Chiuri's kind is a true rarity in this business. Nonetheless, the clothes were best when they weren't wearing their heart on their sleeve. A velvet dress straight out of fair Verona in a luminous shade of light blue was striking in its simplicity. Its sisters, a caftan shape in quilted red velvet and a strappy black velvet style with a bodice in the shape of wings, were the show's undisputed highlights—sophisticated, rich-looking, and grown-up. The gown with the molten gold bodice will surely be another favorite. Its skirt is stitched with a line from Dante's Inferno, which is fitting. A girl would go to hell and back to get her hands on it.

Bouchra Jarrar

Nicole Phelps

January 27, 2015
http://www.style.com/

This time of year, fashion reporters like to talk about the red carpet. It connects our rarefied business to the real world better than anything else, the thinking goes (if you can call five-figure dresses and armies of stylists, hair, and makeup people the real world). Bouchra Jarrar has never gone after celebrity: Despite showing on the couture calendar for the last five years, she had yet to put an evening dress on her runway. The fact that she finally did so today seemed like a statement of intent: "Hollywood, here I come."

With all the money that exchanges hands between fashion houses and stars (many are paid to wear the dresses they choose), it's probably unlikely that Jarrar's bias-cut, open-back gown in ivory silk will make the trip from Paris' premier arrondissement to Los Angeles. Too bad, because what a story it would be for the stylist who took a chance on the relatively under-the-radar Jarrar. Two names made at once: that of the actress and that of the couturier—not to mention what it might do for the stylist's own résumé.

All that said, the success of this collection won't be judged on whether or not Jarrar's name gets uttered on the E! network. She's always made chic daywear the centerpiece of her collection; it's what sets her apart from the couture club's more long-standing and higher-profile members. As usual it was her main focus this afternoon, but there were some developments. To start, miniskirts. Jarrar is a pants girl, but she did a bang-up job on her minis; with their diagonal zips (an echo of her signature Perfectos) and super-short hems, they'll go down as the sexiest things on any catwalk this week. The shiny black PVC pants were a different kind of surprise. They added a touch of kink—a testament, maybe, to the fact that Jarrar, who has moved her atelier from the second to the heartbeat of fashionable Paris in the first, feels well situated enough to let her freak flag fly. Otherwise, a metallic-shot tweed coat with a generous fox-fur collar may have been familiar—Jarrar has long had her fabrics woven specially for her—but it was still fabulous. 

Everyday is a FASHION show and the WORLD is the runway.

- Coco Chanel  

Hello again Fashionistas, hope you are ready for the Spring and Summer Fashion Trends!!!

2015 seems to be a free-fall of 'Fashion Creations', anything goes.  'Love It!'  Let's meet again real soon to lounge and feed out creative minds in our very own private place.  XXOOs

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