The French use an interesting expression—s’assumer—to describe the attitude of taking responsibility and being unapologetic about the choices one makes. “Do you think I’m a diva? Then okay, I’m a diva!” enthused Alexis Mabille, reprising Aretha Franklin’s quote as the headline of his couture collection. “In life it’s just a matter of s’assumer!” he remarked.
Diva par excellence Dita Von Teese graced the front row, applauding Mabille’s creations, which spanned a rather varied repertoire. “I didn’t want the collection to be coherent but embracing many different directions, like on a red carpet,” he mused. Actually, incoherence was in no shortage, but, as Mabille underlined, it was assumé.
The designer touched on many couture archetypes: robe bulles with short taffeta shifts were enveloped in round-shaped capes attached to the hem as cocoons; sinuous strapless numbers à la femme fleur in luscious velvet had satin petals sprouting from the décolletage; glamourous caftans in dense crêpe marocain sported fluid plays on draping. A smoking made an inevitabile appearance, obviously worn sans trousers on bare legs, a big bow on the shoulder trailing all the way to the floor. And a couture version of the masculine white shirt was cut generously in billowy gazar and given a sexy twist paired with straight-leg pants in see-through black lace.
Silhouettes and volumes were as individual as the characters Mabille wanted to portray, running the gamut from the tight fitting to the prodigious, from tailored to flou, from lingerie to sport. “Divas are capricious creatures,” he said. “It’s part of their charm. If a woman feels like being capricious, so what? Il faut s’assumer.”
