Throughout Azzedine Alaïa’s career, his studio occasionally would suggest revisiting certain particularly successful designs. Take, for example, one of the designer’s most iconic pieces, the perfecto. “He would always say ‘yes, okay’ and then he’d change everything, because he hated repeating himself,” said Caroline Fabre Bazin, Alaïa’s longtime right arm, during a studio visit for Spring 2020. “Practically from the beginning, he made them every season: short, long, with zip, without, in python, leather, denim; every time it was different.” After a pause, she added, “We have quite a panel of perfecto patterns.” This season, an early, pre-2000 biker jacket returns in Japanese denim or in a python so shiny and beguiling it instantly brings to mind the old aphorism if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. Elsewhere, the studio transposed an iconic series from its original iteration in studded leather to crisp denim.
For Alaïa loyalists, this season also features exact re-editions of certain favorites, like a polka dot faille trench or a denim peacoat from Summer 1992—a nod to the Tati exhibition currently on show at the Association Azzedine Alaïa, through January 5. (As ever, at a customer’s request the Alaïa ateliers will reproduce special pieces, known as “limited editions” from the house’s couture archives.) For more than 40 years, the late couturier kept one of everything—including prototypes that were never produced. Today the archives count some 25,000 pieces, plus all the original patterns (which may be tweaked, for example, by adding a zipper for greater ease).
Alaïa also had a personal archive of favorite materials, some of which, like the artisanally made “pois” embroidered poplin, were produced especially for him on 19th-century looms in Switzerland. Today, that motif returns to amazing effect in knits by the supplier with whom Mr. Alaïa worked for more than four decades (and who helped him develop and introduce leggings made with Lycra). Those, as well as a new series of silk knits, not to mention a longer version of the Tina Turner skirt, will certainly appeal to a fan base that loves body-con dressing.
“We try always try to have something that relates to our history, without being dated or nostalgic—Mr. Alaïa was never nostalgic,” said Fabre Bazin. And so it is that a bow theme may nod to a collection from 2010, signature studs may return via 3D printing, a technical silk organza may be embroidered with an archival motif and then used on a different silhouette, or a print from 1991 may find fresh relevance on different materials. Ultimately, “then” fuses with “now” and you begin to sense how the archivists must feel as they tackle the designer’s vast legacy. With such troves to hand—and countries near and far clamoring for exhibitions—the Alaïa atelier has all it needs to keep humming for years to come.
