As lockdown lifted, Alexandre Vauthier moved his entire operation into an airy, modernized Haussmannian duplex in a quiet little street next to the Palais Galliera, the fashion museum of the city of Paris. In the run-up to the move, he juggled production to keep collections on track, switching hats from site foreman to logistics director and back to couturier just in time for this presentation.
Business is back to “almost normal,” he said during a showroom visit. “It was great to see that things were possible despite an extreme situation. I didn’t want to leave anyone [on my team] behind, and I also needed to dream.”
When Vauthier dreams, he dreams big and in vivid color, an aesthetic shaped during his early years at Mugler in that designer’s heyday. With his 30-strong team reduced to just five, he focused on what he does best, honing a tight yet exuberant collection with the specialized ateliers he loves, like Lemarié, Goossens, and Lesage.
“A little bit interiorized, but focused on dreams of the exterior” is how he qualified looks that might as well lobby for a return to the social swirl. But until that happens, his loyal clients may well just go ahead and co-opt them for dress-up Zoom dinners.
In lieu of a show, three image-making teams got carte blanche: photographers Karim Sadli (in Paris) and Inez and Vinoodh (in the Hamptons in New York), and videographer Albert Moya each put their own spin on Vauthier’s looks, premiering exclusively here.
Revisited staples—a pale, spare trench with an ample back vent, a faultless black bustier dress, and several black trousers cut with laser precision—kept company with a sleeveless silk satin evening cape in blazing pink and feather-trimmed evening gowns in pink, black, or seafoam green chiffon that harked back to Hollywood’s golden era. Sequined or lavishly embroidered cropped jackets nodded to 1980s-era touchstones, as did tuxedo shorts (seen here with a hat by Philip Treacy) and a gunmetal sequined hybrid carrot/sarouel pant.
Dance ’til you drop numbers included a strapless minidress in gold in Lurex velvet and a candy wrapper of a dress in hand-pleated fuchsia lamé on organza, its flounces held aloft by fishing line (seriously). The tiered gold lamé halter dress would be right at home on any red carpet, were those happening right now, but in any case it will keep forever, as will the black or white burnt ostrich feather chubbies.
The overall impression was one of weightlessness and insouciance—both obviously in short supply just now—regardless of the countless hours that went into making such confections. “Luxury is time, reflection, and especially not wasting,” the designer noted. By that, one infers he means not wasting your life in pajamas either.
