Couture week has seen an unusual amount of daywear, even daywear of the unadorned sort at Dior. Daywear is not what you go to Elie Saab’s haute couture show for. True to form, the Lebanese designer sent out a pageant of dresses—enough for a whole season of galas, weddings, and other lavish occasions. Pageantry wasn’t far from Saab’s mind; his show notes imagined a fictional world of “fallen kings, defeated by a fearless and heroic sisterhood . . . bright and brave warrior queens they were, are, and forever will be.” Picture Game of Thrones when Sansa Stark, her auburn hair held in place by a gleaming bandeau headband, vanquishes them all in the end. I know I’m rooting for her, and from the looks of it, so might Saab be.
With one exception—an early look that combined trousers, jacket, and a train—Saab’s warrior queens wore floor-sweeping gowns, many accompanied by matching capes. These are not clothes for battle, unless it’s quarry of a romantic kind we’re talking about. There were regal velvets and silks, elaborately embroidered with gold thread, and softer, younger-seeming mousselines and tulles that offered glimpses of flesh underneath. Some of the beadwork suggested heraldry. Were those eagle’s wings or angel’s picked out in sequins on the sheer bodice of a white gown? The bride wore palest blush pink burnished with gold sequins and a hooded veil that required two attendants in matching beaded pale blush pink dresses of their own.
Saab’s is a nostalgic view of female power dating to medieval times, but that could be why it remains seductive—on the runway and in the culture. Who can resist the fairy tale? A quick scan of Instagram reveals countless Sansa Stark fan pages. Winter is coming, ladies—get your dresses!
