As another spellbinding couture season closed out last Friday, we’re left only with visions of tulle and chiffon dreams. That’s because it was an extravagant week worth remembering. From the celebrity cameos, the live-audience cinematic recordings and the men who made it into couture, we’ve dissected the major takeaways from the autumn/winter 2022 shows. Read on and fall victim to the ground-breaking experimentalism and masterful craftsmanship of an untouchable art form.

COUTURE CAN BE DEMOCTRATIC

History. Wealth. Rules. These three things have severed the ultra-rarified world of haute couture from the rest of fashion for as long as models have stormed the catwalk. Translated directly to “high sewing”, to classify as couture each garment must be crafted entirely by hand and must be made in an atelier situated within the confines of Paris – therefore meeting the Chambre Syndicale De La Haute Couture’s exacting standards. As the haute couture crows descended upon the City of Love, there was but one thing the couturiers made sure to divulge and we now know it to be true: we can all be opulent.

To square that circle, Valentino boasted an extravagant democratised spectacle, expanding its couture market dramatically. Models were diverse in size, age, race, and gender while about a quarter of the collection was realised in upcycled materials. Pierpaolo Piccioli also invited 120 students to experience the grandeur and even led his atelier team down Rome’s Spanish Steps, bestowing them with well deserved recognition. Iris Van Herpen and Olivier Rousteing for Jean Paul Gaultier offered the same accolade this season.

On the other end of the spectrum, Balenciaga adopted a see-now-buy-now system, inviting guests to tour Balenciaga’s new twin couture stores. There, certain limited edition items and looks straight off the runway were available for purchase.

NEW-GENERATION COUTURIERS SHONE BRIGHT

This season, it was the new-gen couturiers who triumphed. The retina-pinging experience of seeing what came out of Demna, Daniel Roseberry and Olivier Rousteing was spectacular to say the least. They’re some of the most exciting thinkers and practitioners in fashion today. They’re cultural curators of the highest regard with all the pop cultural panache one could ever need.

At Balenciaga, Demna’s sophomore couture effort infused a reinvigorated sense of celebrity status into the Balenciaga show with a surprisingly star-stacked spectacle. In came Kim K and co – Naomi Campbell, Dua Lipa and Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn for their catwalk cameos. However, the internet-breaking moment was when Nicole Kidman stepped into the salon in a shimmering, silver gown – causing Insta-pandemonium. Plus, swept in behind extraterrestrial sunglasses, Kris Jenner and her granddaughter North West, Róisín Murphy, Offset, Alton Mason, and Tracee Ellis Ross, were all in attendance, making it a mega-celebrity assembly of sorts.

Also at Schiaparelli, a gaggle of actors, singers and influencers took to the front row, such as Hunter Schafer, Jeremy O. Harris, Janicza Bravo and Natasha Lyonne. Elsewhere, Rousteing embraced the task of tackling the Jean Paul Gautier archive. The Balmain designer recreated Madonna’s infamous topless JPG outfit from the 1992 AmfAR Gala and even interpreted the couturier’s cage and corset structures in Balmain-esque armour dresses. Plus, each of the designers invited men to enrol in the couture sphere – but more on that later.

EASY GOING OPTIMISM

While couture tends to be the most intricate, eccentric and expensive avenue within fashion, this season’s collections weren’t trying to be a capitalist claptrap, rather, they were on a mission to make couture everyday wearable. Offering an invitation to dream and appreciate pure beauty, Fendi made a case for real-life haute couture. Silk linings were finished with a rustic topstitch, sheer tent dresses intricately embroidered, and muted, demure hues that, though beguiling, were full of life. These were the details you might’ve missed, but it’s these that make couture – the subtle intricacies.

At Dior, simplified silhouettes were rich with texture. It wasn’t about gimmicks or repost-ability, it was a rarified expression of design dexterity. Some pieces were so straightforward that their attentive handwork was achingly, gloriously plain. The same could be said for Virginie Viard, who expanded on her casualised takes on Chanel signatures in a show that moved with ease and sophistication. Then, at Giorgio Armani Privé the message was one of optimism, with a proclivity for joy and pleasure, frivolity even. It was a pursuit of elegant daywear amongst streamlined evening gowns and eccentric neoclassical suiting.

FILMS ARE FASHIONABLE

When Covid was rife, fashion houses transformed into movie studios releasing short films in place of live presentations. And though brands have been returning to the runway once again over the past year or so, that proclivity for cinema all but went away.

In fact, for its return to the runway, Maison Margiela showed another fashion film, except this one was performed and recorded in front of a live audience, at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris. It was an ambitious performance that mixed theatre and rudimentary special effects where models lip-synched to a pre-recorded soundtrack in real time for more than half-an-hour. Dubbed Cinema Inferno, the Artisanal 2022 show was a love story that resembled the tragic narratives of Natural Born Killers and True Romance, taking inspiration from Badlands, Bonnie and Clyde, Kill Bill and The Wizard of Oz, as well as a whole host of B-movies ranging from Westerns to horror flicks. The rather chaotic showcas jarred guests out of their reverie, using storytelling to elevate the staging from a commercial endeavour to an artistic statement. The clear Gallianoisms left us wanting more entertainment and a surplus of live-action aburdity. It was all quite meta, to be completely honest.

On the other end of the cinematic spectrum, Schiaparelli opted for the soundtracks of cult-classics to guide models across the catwalk. While Roseberry wasn’t directly influenced by the productions, lead scores from the likes of Jurassic Park, Star Wars and Indiana Jones made it feel like we’d somehow been transported into our televisions.

MEN IN COUTURE

Here’s where the men come in. Once the sole preserve of the world’s richest women, there’s an increasing appetite for haute couture menswear.

In the past, men could either shop from ready-to-wear collections or cop a tailored suit from places like London’s bespoke tailoring houses on Savile Row. Although some would argue that Jean Paul Gaultier can be credited with instigating masculine couture at his spring 1997 couture show, it’s never really been a thing of prevalence. However, couture offers a new, elevated experience of clothing, so why shouldn’t men have access to it?

Valentino made a case for fancy-schmancy menswear with slouchy suiting and sequin sets. Thankfully, Pierpaolo wasn’t alone. Balenciaga brought out crinkled jumpers and slick leather coats while John Galliano for Maison Margiela was ultimately androgynous. With Olivier Rousteing at the helm of Jean Paul Gautier, the men’s edit was inspired by the pan-African cultural references of Gaultier’s spring 1994 collection, fused with the design language of the house as well as Rousteing’s own. But that’s not all, from behind the curtain came a sexually-ambiguous collection by Charles de Vilmorin, delivering men in fluid ball gowns with multi-inch acrylic claws and allowing gender binaries to become a thing of the past. Of course, these aren’t inaugural examples of couture for men, but they may be the most prevalent so far –  and that’s worth hoping for more.

@10magazineaustralia