A lot of ’80s. A little Victoriana. Elie Saab didn’t used to be a designer who paid attention to trends, but for Pre-Fall he landed on two of the biggest ones going. The first look in the slideshow—with its Madonna-in-her-early-years accessories and its leg–of–mutton sleeves—encapsulates the collection’s full-tilt exuberance. Saab also embraced hearts. They turned up as studding outlining the lace insets on cocktail dresses and as lace insets themselves on other numbers. On brass belt buckles, too. This was the designer at his most maximal, a direction he likewise embraced on his Spring runway in Paris, only then it was with 1970s vibes. Here, even the tracksuits came in silk velvet with tulle and lace striping. Another pair of track pants was cut entirely from lace.
What of the bread-and-butter special-occasion dresses he built his business on? They were similarly extravagantly detailed: a narrow belted column in allover turquoise beaded lace with those exaggerated Victorian shoulders, a tulle T-shirt gown sequined in a garden-trellis motif and accented with more sequined flowers. Amidst the lavishings of embroideries, a V-neck gown with vertical stripes rendered in what looked like a dip-dyed technique had a quieter, softer appeal. It was an outlier in a collection that was otherwise devoted to glam.
