Alaïa: SS25
Clean, chic and contemporary, Alaïa’s foray to New York fashion week brought a sense of excitement to the air. The brand, who normally shows in Paris, ended a day full of back-to-back shows in the most NYC way possible – at the Guggenheim Museum. For Pieter Mulier the city’s energy and arts scene was a source of inspiration, finding resonance between the curves in Alaïa’s legacy and the spiralled design of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture.
It’s the first time the Guggenheim hosted a fashion show in its iconic rotunda, however, Alaïa is no stranger to the city. Azzedine Alaïa himself presented his first ever New York show in Bergdorf Goodman in 1982. A few years later, another show celebrating his lineup of works was hosted at the Palladium NYC, known as the Palladium Show, in collaboration with director Jean-Paul Goude.
Given the brand’s red carpet prowess, the front row was equally as star-filled. Rihanna made her first NYFW appearance stunning the venue in a full white dress with a bustier, wrapped by a glistening long mesh. Then there’s Lewis Hamilton and the Met’s Andrew Bolton who sat across Linda Evangelista with Anna Wintour by his side – mirroring how fashion and art sit together on this very day. Also in the crowd? Greta Lee, Liv Tyler, and Stephanie Seymour.
Mona Tougaard opened the show in a bandeau paired with a short white skirt. The show unfolded in the Alaïa palette: ecru, beige, navy, dusty pink and, of course, black. Mulier thinks of the body as sculpture with the dresses carved in sinuous lines and asymmetrical hemlines that imitate the signature spiral interior of the museum. There were big shapes too as with trompe-l’oeil coats and puffers that hugged the body like an abstract painting.
Mulier continued to reinvent and reinterpret the codes of Alaïa, propelling the brand’s legacy in the language of fashion that translates across cities and cultures. Fashion and art unit at the Guggenheim museum tonight in Mulier’s vision.
