ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories: Paris Haute Couture

Few other fashion experiences provide a sensory overload like haute couture, and that was certainly true of Raf Simons’s absolutely exquisite and electric (and not to mention playfully erotic) spring 2015 haute couture collection for Christian Dior. Simons has proved himself quite the master at creating the perfect mise-en-scène for his couture outings. Here, in a towering edifice erected slap bang in the middle of the stately gardens of the Musée Rodin, was a show space constructed out of gleaming white girders and gantries in some insane formations, then carpeted pretty much everywhere with a bois du rose tapis the trippy kaleidoscopic vibe amplified by mirrors reflecting the set into infinity. The hallucinogenic effect of all this does, of course, draw all-too-delicious comparisons with the hothouse environment that couture is created in, because after all, where else can one’s wildest, craziest, most fantastical impulses become a kind of reality?

My visit at the DIOR showroom, Paris, via Instagram by @andreajankeofficial

Except, speaking to Simons before the show, it seems he was concerned with much more material concerns, quite literally. As in, just how much can you push fabric developments and embellishment techniques to create something truly magical? Goodness knows he tried ... and succeeded. There were beautiful pleated skirts and dresses of dramatically full proportions, striated with different colored ribbons. Guipure lace became a base on which to layer and layer and then layer again with rich encrustations of sequins, which were sometimes mixed with that spongey wool beloved by André Courrèges et al, rendered in a series of short, sixties-esque dresses. And in what looked like a moment of channeling Peter Max, there were acid-patterned, vividly colored knit jumpsuits which, yes, said Simons, will be available made to measure just like any other couture ensemble.

Still, to think that this collection is only surface would belie the depth Simons brought to his creative process. Speaking to him further, it became evident that he was also thinking about material culture, specifically that of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and what each decade means to him, namely romanticism (1950s), experimentation (1960s), and liberation (1970s), riffing on everything from William Klein’s Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? to Kansai Yamamoto’s psychedelic catsuits for David Bowie circa 1972′s Ziggy Stardust Tour. Many of the looks bore the hallmarks of different decades: viz a dress of very Monsieur Dior volumes spliced with curving cutouts on the body, akin to those seen on some insane look a body-painted Veruschka would have worn around the time of the Summer of Love, paired with glam-rock kinky wet-look leather boots resting on silver frame heels.

And there was yet more to all this: Deep down in this collection was Simons’s ongoing exploration of female sexuality, to which his choice of time frame was important, given it went through some radical and far-reaching changes from the fifties to the seventies. But maybe going further and further into this collection doesn’t really matter here, not when what was evident to the naked eye was quite so fantastic.

Discover the DIOR Spring 2015 Haute Couture show at the end of this post!

LoL, Andrea

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories

Photo Credit/Source: The House of DIOR

Photos: Delphine Achard (Stills), Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages

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'Mood for Love by VALENTINO Spring 2015 Haute Couture'

For spring 2015 haute couture Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli are in the mood for love. Their inspiration board was lined with quotes from Shakespeare, bits and pieces of Dante's Inferno, and the paintings of Marc Chagall, hopeless romantics all. Chagall, in particular, captivated them. "He had an incredible life, very hard, but he maintained his optimistic vision," Piccioli said.