Shortly before Alexandre Vauthier’s most recent couture show in January, he felt a twinge in his neck. He shrugged it off—as you do with apparently minor niggles when the heat is on—and proceeded to present a typically powerful collection that was memorably attended by Céline Dion wearing a smoky eye and a Vauthier dress split soprano-high.
Hence the neck brace when Vauthier bounced into his studio this evening. Happily, he is on the mend (lots of TLC and osteopathy) and he hasn’t let the injury distract from his machine-gun schedule. There was Beyoncé’s couture dress at the Oscars—“I am super happy about it; she looked super cool,” he said—and the preparation of this ready-to-wear collection. A more evening extension of Vauthier’s most recent pre, it is also a forensically focused offering that speaks to its couture cousin.
Vauthier said growth has been consistent over the nine years he has been in business, but added: “Every six months, I organize everything depending on the sales and the results. And I work to develop the most important things—which are the quality of the clothes and the accessories, the metronomic rhythm of the delivery, and the right production—to be superefficient.”
This collection ran the gamut from tailoring to the plissé mega-skirts via long, strong silhouetted jersey dresses and strapless minidresses with black sequined skirts and bow-tied bosoms in white silk. Ruffled layered animalia and full-volumed, same-pattern brocade and bouclé aplenty were on offer as partners to a rapidly growing selection of mid- to high-heeled sandals, knee-highs, and booties in cream, black, or shades of blush to beige, sometimes accented by Swarovski.
“I try to be super coherent,” said Vauthier. He is, and super-dedicated too. It will take more than a mere pain in the neck to slow him down for even a heartbeat.