The Haute Highlights

Fashion : Love

09 July 2020

It’s not been the first digital fashion week – our hometown London grandly led the way within Europe – but it certainly won’t be the last. The Haute Couture shows, which have been known for showing extravagant and bespoke pieces that extremely limited in numbers, have had to swap their regular location of Parisian establishments for the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode website, as precautions to stop the spread of the pandemic have prevented an IRL showcasing.

But despite the lack of physical audiences to induce a gasp out of, the brands on schedule still managed to do so in spite of the viewers being in the comforts of their homes. Dior played homage to the Théâtre de la Mode with miniature caricatures of their couture collection, and Schiaparelli showed that designs can be conjured outside the norms of a regular office space. But these pleasures were only the start of a joyous celebration of artisanship, and below we’ve featured our favourites that have left a lasting memory in the midst of couture content.

Azzaro Couture
We often see Haute Couture elegantly donned on red carpets internationally, but with uncertainties as to when we’ll be able to convene in a space without having to adhere to social distancing measures, who knows when these events will happen again. This was something that we suspect Olivier Theyskens had in mind, as he decided to showcase his first collection for Azzaro Couture via a music video. Singer-songwriter Sylvie Kreusch and the video director Lukas Dhont were given complete creative freedom for the ‘Seedy Tricks’ music video, with Kreusch dressed head to toe in Theyskens’ latest collection. Along with it being an innovative and unique way of displaying a collection, it also gave purpose to clothes whose future is uncertain. Our only downside is that we wanted to see more – Theyskens, how about an encore?

Chanel
Sometimes, we find that less is more in terms of a fashion show, but this is rarely the case with Haute Couture. Yet, Chanel’s dramatically minimal yet strikingly beautiful film proved this is hot for haute. Mikael Jansson’s videography and photography captured the punk mood of the collection, through sudden changes from black and white to colour lighting. Virginie Viard shared that she “was thinking about a punk princess coming out of ‘Le Palace’ at dawn,” when she was designing this collection, which is clearly seen through the asymmetric hems, metallic colour palette and opulent jewelled embroidery. Despite the collection theme being quite contrary to the maison’s regular aesthetic, we’d be honoured to be rocking out in these Chanel pieces.

Yuima Nakazato
The fashion industry’s constant production has always been a problem within the sustainability sphere, but Nakazato’s couture collection ‘Face to Face’ has very cleverly eliminated that. Instead of creating his collection with new fabrics – the production of which may have been environmentally damaging, as well as the off-cuts it could produce – he decided to reinterpret his customer’s old shirts into new creations. Consulting with them over Zoom as opposed to the expected face to face fitting, he asked them the history and personal significance behind the shirts they had sent, then took this dialogue as inspiration for his revisionist bespoke pieces. What resulted as a sea of unique tailoring that is intimate with people wearing them. What is more beautiful than honouring the old by using it to make something new?

Viktor & Rolf
Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren have always been known for experimenting with voluminous silhouettes in a playful manner – lest we forget the meme sensation their Spring 2019 show became – and for this season, they did so whilst being respectfully relevant to our current circumstances. Digitising a traditional salon-style presentation, they showed nine looks that were segmented into three moods: one of sombre, then confliction and finally, love. Singer-songwriter Mika gave a commentary for each look, and as the camera showed close ups (as per the salon-style), he would comment on the “intricate lace encrustations” that would often be emojis or literal symbols of emotion, i.e a rain cloud reflecting sadness was featured within the first set. This collection was a necessary reminder that more positive times are coming, and it couldn’t have been a better way of ending the digital fashion week.