ARMANI PRIVÉ SPRING 2014 COUTURE

ARMANI PRIVÉ 

SPRING 2014 COUTURE

It often takes a while for the rhythm of an Armani collection to get a grip. Tonight's Armani Privé couture show, the fulcrum of yet another of Giorgio Armani's One Night Only spectaculars, was no exception.

The beginning was casual, tentative: little silk tops with plissé pants or skirts, a silk jacquard blazer paired with a gazar skirt. Then a new dimension kicked in. The models—heads wrapped in scarves, with dangly earrings, in full skirts and low-heeled shoes—began to evoke the gypsy spirit of arch fashion icon Loulou de la Falaise.

That is hallowed ground for any designer, given de la Falaise's goddess/muse status with Yves Saint Laurent. You have to be a titan to take it on. Armani clearly has the cojones to claim the look. 

He did it with his default position: navy blue. It's nonsense that this man is permanently damned with greige. It's North African navy where he has found his sweet spot—the midnight blue of a velvety desert sky, untroubled by ambient light, alive with stars. 

Tonight's collection, named Nomade for all the tribes who drift under heaven's dome, moved on from midnight to gloss the silveriness of those stars with a Byzantine decorative edge. Alana Zimmer in a sheath of silver with Swarovski-studded bodice and head tightly bound in crystals looked like a Hollywood vamp. 

 It was enough to make you wonder whether the play of dark and light in an Armani collection isn't ultimately all about the boy Giorgio alone in a movie theater while war rages outside. And if this is the way he exorcises his demons, then all power to him.

BY STYLE.COM

VALENTINO SPRING 2014 COUTURE

MAARTJE VERHOEF (WOMEN)

VALENTINO 

HARLETH KUUSIK (ELITE)

SPRING 2014 COUTURE

ANNA EWERS (WOMEN)

KAYLEY CHABOT (NEXT)

Fifty-five looks for fifty-five operas. The Valentino designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli were after something new for Couture this season, and they found it in the age-old tradition of opera. 

VALERY KAUFMAN (ELITE)

OPHELIE GUILLERMAND (WOMEN)

The show opened with a nod to La Traviata; Giuseppe Verdi's score was embroidered in black on the long, full skirt of a parchment-colored tulle dress. 

ANTONIA WESSELOH (ELITE)

SASHA LUSS (ELITE)

After that, Chiuri explained, "we wanted to describe the character of each [opera's] protagonist in a primordial way." By the end, they had called out all the greats: Puccini's La Bohème inspired an elegant navy cashmere cape and silk crepe sheath. Bizet'sCarmen produced a pleated bronze tulle gown with silver-gray guipure lace embroideries.

MANUELA FREY (ELITE)

INE NEEFS (ELITE)

Admittedly, the connections were sometimes tenuous, but that didn't detract from the austere beauty of simply draped silk marocain dresses in earthy shades of sienna, green, and mahogany.

MIJO MIHALJCIC (IMG)

IRINA LISS (NATHALIE)

Or the divine splendor of a gold thread dress embellished with four thousand smoky gemstones that took twenty-five hundred hours to affix.

ASHLEIG GOOD (ELITE)

KATE GOLDLING (FORD)

The monastic and the regal are the twin signatures of Chiuri and Piccioli's work chez Valentino. Both sides of that aesthetic presumably appeal to Florence + the Machine's Florence Welch, who was perched near Giancarlo Giammetti in the front row.

BOGI SAFRAN (NATHALIE)

HARLETH KUUSIK (ELITE)

The surprise was all the animals—a veritable menagerie of them, or as the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns would've had it, a carnaval des animaux. 

LAURA SCHELLENBERG (IMG)

ONDRIA HARDIN (ELITE)

A swan, a snake, and a peacock made from feathers that wrapped around the waistline of ballerina tutus…lions and elephants on a double-face cashmere dress and a coat (not embroidered, mind you, but built into the fabric of the garments, like a puzzle)…even a gorilla and its baby were spotted tucked amid the leather floral appliqués of an organza cape.

CAROLINE BRASCH NIELSEN (ELITE)

MAGDALENA JASEK (OUI)

The creativity of the set dressers at the Rome Opera House had a profound effect on the duo this season; Chiuri and Piccioli invited the opera's artisans to paint the show's runway and backdrop.

PAULINE HOARAU (ELITE)

INE NEEFS (ELITE)

But if theatricality is a virtue onstage, the more realistically the creatures were rendered here, the better off the clothes were. By contrast, a satin tiger practically pounced off the skirt of the finale dress.

KREMI OTASHLIYSKA (ELITE)

IRINA KRAVCHENCO (NATHALIE)

The workmanship was second to none, but the designers may have overestimated the big cat's charms. All in all though, this was another bravura performance.

LEXI BOLING (FORD)

MAARTJE VERHOEF (WOMEN)

ELISABETH ERM (ELITE)

COUTERSY OF STYLE.COM

ALEXANDRE VAUTHIER SPRING 2014 COUTURE

SASHA LUSS (ELITE)

ALEXANDRE VAUTHIER

ZUZANNA BIJOCH (NEXT)

SPRING 2014 COUTURE

GRACE MAHARY (IMG)

With a wall of glowing lights at the far end of a glossy black runway, it seemed that Alexandre Vauthier wanted to establish a nightclub ambience for his Spring couture show.

 KATE BOGUCHARSKAIA (NEXT)

Not so. "It was beach and windsurf!" he said emphatically, noting that even the ambient music reinforced the mellow vibe. There was, come to think of it, a beachy attitude to the oxblood bra that appeared midway through—its cups framed in crocodile—and to the hot pants that opened the show.

 CAROLINE BRASCH NIELSEN (ELITE)

They were shown with heels and a fold-over clutch that had a chain running between them, mimicking a surfboard leash: This was surf fetishism, perhaps. 

 LINDSEY WIXSON (ELITE)

 LAIS RIBEIRO (OUI)

Vauthier also gave exposure to a loosely interpreted ethnic theme that played out as jewel-encrusted paneling, extra-long fringes, and intricate leather braiding. If it vaguely recalled a not-so-distant Givenchy couture collection, the designer's pursuit of exceptional fabrications became the more interesting story.

 HANA JIRICKOVA (SILENT)

 LINDSEY WIXSON (ELITE)

A preview of the clothes a day earlier at his showroom brought this into focus. Here, a leopard-spotted lamé reproduced from Saint Laurent's atelier. There, a deceivingly simple oversize warm-up jacket in rare white astrakhan. Up close, sheer leggings combined extra-fine tulle and lace in contoured accord.

 MAUD WELZEN (ELITE)

 CAROLINE BRASCH NIELSEN (ELITE)

The rigid ruffles were the stuff of hat construction, an idea that emerged from Vauthier's correspondence with Maison Michel. Ingeniously, he affixed them to a bodysuit instead of a dress—and just like that, the surf theme reemerged. If only he had kept proportions tight and short instead of extending the swirling mass into a creeping tail. 

CHIHARU OKUNUGI (NATHALIE)

There's some pleasure in knowing that Vauthier does not shy away from extravagance—or bike chains as choker necklaces—as long as the final product bears witness to his creative process.

SASHA LUSS (ELITE)

  LAIS RIBEIRO (OUI)

Plus he clearly understands restraint, avoiding closures on his men's-style blazers to keep his top layers fluid. 

 KATLIN ASS (IMG)

 KATE BOGUCHARSKAIA (NEXT)

He could benefit from recalibrating his ratio of hyperfeminine to token masculine; this way, his collections might not end up as engulfed by their sexiness. But one imagines that for some clients that is precisely the appeal.

LEXI BOLING (FORD)

  HANA JIRICKOVA (SILENT)

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