ICARUS

When beginning this season of Haute Couture, I found myself looking for old and unusual color references. I ended up at an antique shop with an inventory of ribbons from the 1920s and 1930s. Before the war, many of these ribbons were created in Lyon, and shipped around the world. But when Germany invaded France, many of these spools of ribbon were hidden away, lost for a period to history.

You’ll see some of these ribbons this morning on the dresses in this collection. As I ran my hand among them last year, I realized what I wanted to do: Create something that feels new because it’s old. I’m so tired of everyone constantly equating modernity with simplicity: Can’t the new also be worked, be baroque, be extravagant? Has our fixation on what looks or feels modern become a limitation? Has it cost us our imagination?

The process began with the ribbons’ colors. There were butters, saffrons, faded peacock greens and burnt saffron browns. We dubbed the brown one “toast,” and the warm French grey one “mink.” They inspired me to indulge in a bit of time travel, to design silhouettes that might conjure the Haute Couture of the past. I spent months studying the great chapters of great couturiers from various decades: Madame Grès, Charles Frederick Worth, Paul Poiret, Yves Saint Laurent, and Azzedine Alaïa. I didn’t want to copy their work; I wanted to learn from them.

The silhouettes you see in this collection nod to a wide range of references—obsessions—from the past century plus: the snaky, curvy forms from the 1920s and 1930s (what I call liquid deco) here finds shape in fragile silk georgette embroidered with Japanese bugle beads, which is then mounted onto French corset toile molded into shockingly sharp hip blades. We took severe-shouldered prewar Schiaparelli jackets and simplified and elongated them, pairing them with 1990s-style simple bias-cut floor-length column skirts in double satins.

Along with experiments and allusions in form, we also experimented with techniques. We cut our most classic Schiap blazer in Ultrasuede, and overembroidered it with silk satin threadwork. We bathed feathers in glycerin to give them some weight before brushing them with keratin, thus giving them a texture akin to what you’d find in Ginger Rogers’ costumes (in her days, the 1930s, that effect was achieved with monkey fur). The second golden age of Haute Couture, the 1950s, can be seen in the era’s rigorous silhouettes that have here been reproportioned. An A-line baby doll dress has been dropped from the hips, which have been padded to echo the bust line. The whole thing is rendered from thick, lustrous satin cuir—sometimes known as “leather satin”—that’s been adorned with Schiaparelli’s house codes (the keyhole, the dove, anatomy) in padded satin stitch, trembling with thousands of smoked quartz bugle droplets. There’s even an homage to some of Elsa’s more refined gowns, such as a plisse halter in sand-colored polyamide tulle, which gives it an integrity, weight, and modernity that would be impossible to achieve with silk. The ateliers have been also mastering a technique of building a

corset in toile, covering it in fine layers of wool and cotton, and then stretching silk satin with elastic on top to achieve a seamless effect. Every look here has been nurtured and tended to like a baby, as have our shoes and bags, all treated like petits bijoux, and embroidered in all manner of techniques, from Matador cording to resin rosettes.

And one last thing. About that title: Haute Couture is by definition a quest for perfection. Every season can feel like a quixotic struggle, a climb, to reach an ever-higher level of execution and vision. But we do it—I do it—for you, our viewers, our clients, our passionate followers.

You make Haute Couture for love, of course. You also, however, do it for duty. I never forget that I get to helm what is perhaps the last great Maison to have been resurrected. It’s my joy, but also my responsibility, to keep making the work better. Haute Couture aspires to reach great heights; it promises escape from our complicated reality. It also reminds us that perfection comes at a price. How high can we couturiers go? As high as the sun—and the Gods—allow us.

Daniel Roseberry