Autumn-Winter 2018: The palate-cleansing couture

It’s rather intriguing how haute couture throws up a fusillade of alchemical-marries-ephemeral surprises season after season. Sometimes bourgeois elegance makes way for radical street and it’s not uncommon to see statement feathers creating space for plissé pleats. Perhaps this remarkable volte-face makes fashion such an exciting study. If Christian Dior’s Spring 2017 show under the aegis of the talented Maria Grazia Chiuri celebrated fencers and feminists, her Autumn-Winter 2018 outing had a strong nod to old world elegance and a quiet restraint. Her litany of pleated dresses in matte duchesse and crepe underscored the sublime craftsmanship of the atelier. And this was no exception. Givenchy’s moving tribute to their founder — the late Hubert de Givenchy recreated the timeless Audrey Hepburn magic from some of her iconic films. Karl Lagerfeld too sent out the Chanel bride (essayed beautifully by Adut Akech) dressed in muted tweed minus the floor-sweeping train one usually associates with grand finale outfits. So is it safe to deduce that — is haute couture back to embracing classic elegance and simplicity? Is it couture’s retort to the all-pervading street style? Or is the couture client the ultimate queen? We invited a distinguished panel to discuss... 

CLIENT IS THE QUEEN

Designer Monisha Jaising observes that haute couture by far is moving towards femininity and she attributes it to the fact that in our daily lives, fashion is all about gender fluidity. “I guess that’s why when a woman now gets a chance to wear couture, she tends to favour elegance. The couture client is definitely the Queen! After the Second World War too, there was a return to femininity, Christian Dior emphasised on the hour glass silhouette, which was actually so contrary to Post War sentiments that woman should go back home and to house work. So yes, it could be a response to the ‘street cred overdose’, for haute couture has always tended to go in the total opposite direction,” says Monisha.  

BACK TO BASICS

We are living in an age where everything is fast-paced from the touch screen of our phones to our office biometrics and guess, it’s fashion’s way of saying — ‘calm down’. FDCI columnist Asmita Aggarwal observes, “The world is moving at a dizzying speed and there is a need to slow down and go back to the basics. That’s why you see a return to femininity and classics. There are always two ways to react —— one is what Christian Dior did after the war — created the New Look in 1947, with the cinched waist and the billowing skirt, when using so much fabric was forbidden. He was severely criticised almost ostracised from the fashion world for his unruly extravagance. And the other way is to be frugal as Post War women had declared independence and wanted practicality and pragmatism rather than fantasy in their wardrobes. Every generation has a different reaction to the circumstances. And now relaxed chic is the new lexicon of fashion where you are not trying to hard, you are just being yourself, it has an almost languid feel to it, à la Marlene Dietrich style. Even if you see the changes in Indian couture everything is lighter, easy breezy and pastel so women are courting simplicity like never before as they want one area of their life to be less complicated.”

AN UNDERSTATED TAKE ON LUXURY

After the Dior couture show, Maria Grazia Chiuri said that she wanted to make something so subtle you almost couldn’t see it on Instagram. “And in a way, if you look at Givenchy, Dior, Fendi, the first 40 looks at Armani, and some of Chanel, their shows reflected a luxurious yet understated take on luxury that almost seems to be thumbing its nose at social media, and street fashion. Even at Valentino — fabulous! one of my favourite shows — a totally Instagram-friendly show, Pierpaolo Picciolo created something that was a far cry from what passes off as street style. So maybe yes, couture is remaking itself in the age of Instagram,” says Nishat Fatima, fashion writer.