After producing 10 collections without the house’s founder, the Alaïa studio has pretty much found its stride, taking liberties while never straying too far from home base.
It also found ample inspiration in two satellite events: the new exhibition at the Galerie Azzedine Alaïa entitled Alaia and Balenciaga, Sculptors of Shape, and the book Taking Time, a selection of conversations compiled over the years around Alaïa’s imposing, eclectically populated dinner table. Among those featured are Jonathan Ive and Marc Newson, who speak of time as “the first ergonomic product.”
For fall, the studio picks up on the designer’s fascination with ergonomy, in particular through jersey knit. Starting with archival samples and a lifetime’s worth of research, it delved into origami-inspired pleating and came up with a new, openwork iteration that, while visibly true to house codes also pushed the story forward. For the first time, a cape coat ordinarily cut from cloth resurfaced in a dense knit, textured in ovoid reliefs. Knits also proved a foil for a leather corset belt with fringes that fell to mid-thigh. Impractical though it may be, in a season heavy with fringe, that would-be skirt was one of the most compelling pieces around. In that spirit, there were also a few fringed jackets extrapolated from one Mr. Alaïa had left unfinished on a mannequin in his studio.
Elsewhere, a sunflower print paid homage to Cristobal Balenciaga. With more than 500 pieces in his personal trove, Mr. Alaïa was one of the world’s biggest Balenciaga collectors, and the Spanish designer’s favorite bloom appeared freshly reworked in muted hues, in Alaïa’s signature shapes newly cut from habotai, a diaphanous Japanese technical silk that slips through the fingers like water.
With Alaïa’s original, iconic zip dress headed to the upcoming Met exhibition, About Time (which has been indefinitely postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic), the studio offered up a new, simpler take on that idea in a little black dress. His signature leopard print also appeared in various iterations, in a gathered and belted coat or a knit bodice on an evening gown (something Mr. Alaïa rarely did in ready-to-wear). Other highlights included velvet dresses in true black or faux blacks, like deep burgundy or forest green, and an eye-catching jacket and skirt ensemble in laser-cut, embroidered leather that amped up the contrast of matte and shine.
