Drawing on couture to create a ready-to-wear capsule whose colors, lengths, and flourishes can be adapted on request has proved a winning strategy for Alexis Mabille. And since he’s had to turn down clients unwilling to wait for couture pieces, doing things this way gives everyone a luxurious plan B.
For spring, he focused on nineteen evening looks that would be “like a cool and effortless wardrobe, with a relaxed, younger twist,” he explained, standing amid the mannequins in his boutique-showroom-atelier in the Galerie Vivienne. With clients — particularly younger ones — going all-out to dress up in London, New York, and beyond, he wants to make sure they can do it with the same ease as throwing on a t-shirt (even if that t-shirt is in fact, a body-con dress). To that end, a couple of long dresses in merino jersey were fancied up with lace or floral brocade.
Lace also took a place of pride, for example, on a white ottoman blouse with a yoke of Lyon lace sourced, poignantly, from a heritage supplier that floundered during the pandemic. It was paired with a long, wrap skirt in matte gold lamé and a sequined belt. An otherwise minimalist white bustier dress with a lace-trimmed ruffled neckline and hem might suit a bohemian-lite bride, and an aquamarine crepe t-shirt dress encrusted with lace from knee to floor nodded to the current trend for transparent skirts without giving anything away.
Tried-and-true silhouettes also returned in an array of deep copper hues. Among these were a lamé shirt dress cinched with a satin belt, a long bustier dress in chestnut crepe with the designer’s signature bow as sleeves, and a kimono dress. Hardly groundbreaking, but then again that’s not what Mabille’s base is after.
