By Frederic Blanc of Fashion-spider
An essential moment in French fashion, Haute Couture Week took place at the end of January 2023 to present the most grandiose creations of the most prestigious houses in the world.
If in the past, few foreign houses were registered in the official calendar, the Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion welcomes more and more new names from all over the world.
Alongside the usual foreign houses such as Georges Hobeika, Maison Rabih Kayrouz, Zuhair Murad, Elie Saab (Lebanon), Rahul Mishra (India), RVDL Ronald Van Der Kemp (Holland), Giorgio Armani, Victor & Rolf, Valentino, Aelis, Fendi (Italy) and Yuima Nakazato (Japan), we found the collection of the Spanish Juana Martín, who entered the official calendar last season, as well as four new foreign houses.
True to her Spanish roots, Juana Martín likes to draw on the history of her country to imagine collections with avant-garde shapes. For her spring-summer collection called « Orígenes », she is inspired by her summers spent in Malaga. A particularly inspiring place to « design the dressing room of an elegant and transgressive woman, who dares to take a step closer to evolution and personal development ».
Passionate about collaborations, she accessorizes her outfits with Christian Louboutin’s shoes, Nadia Chellaoui’s bags and goldsmith’s jewelry Plata Pura. She takes advantage of her fashion show to highlight the work of renowned creators and her vision of design.
After Rahul Mishra, it is the turn of Indian couturier and artist Gaura Gupta to join the calendar of the French Federation. Still unknown in France, the brand has been one of the big names in Indian fashion for 18 years. Graduate of Central Saint-Martin, Gaura Gupta opened her fashion house in 2004 imagining collections based on surrealism and fanaticism by merging indigenous construction and beautification techniques with her very personal idea of the future.
For his first presentation in France, he imagined the collection « Shunya » (zero in Sanskrit), an exploration of the possibilities of movement between zero and infinity with tangents of mythology, fantasy and surrealism. The result is architectural proposals that look fragile, but bring great strength to those who wear them. Sculptural dresses with voluminous shapes carved in hand-woven fabrics in gold and silver rub shoulders with sumptuous dresses draped in satin, chiffon or organza and enhanced with gems. In a nod to the Kundalini, the inseparable snake of India imposes itself on several models by sneaking and intertwining all over the body.
With this collection, Gaura Gupta imposes her vision of fashion while proving that ancestral manual craftsmanship and futuristic design are complementary for contemporary fashion.
Morocco entered the Calendar in a moment of calm and serenity with the collection of Maison Sara Chraïbi called « the stuff of dreams ».
Born in Rabat in 1982, Sara Chraïbi grew up in a world surrounded by art and culture. Passionate about embroidery, she undertook architecture studies in her country before continuing them in Paris by integrating a DEA in philosophy and theory of architecture. In parallel with his studies, his passion for fashion and sewing developed in the capital and made him want to give a new contemporary breath to the know-how and crafts of Morocco.
In 2011, she opened her fashion house and drew on her past as an architect by offering fashion with pure lines, enhanced with embroidery from different influences.
Between tradition and modernity, her collection pays tribute to femininity. The cuts, both simple and refined, are perfectly made and enriched with embroidery paying tribute to the work of parurier, so dear to Moroccan craftsmanship, but also to those of the North African and Mediterranean continent.
Finally, Robert Wun, born in Hong Kong and based in London, made a very remarkable entrance by closing the haute couture week. Winner of the Andam in 2022, the young designer drew on his fears to imagine his « Fear » collection. Fear of damaging the fabrics, staining them, breaking the accessories, to better imagine cleverly mastered pieces highlighting his demons. Although a little old school, disjointed and without real theme the collection offers some pretty pieces.
Not listed on the official calendar, while it has been presenting in Paris since 2016, Ashi Studio proposed a masterful and poetic show, highlighting each of its pieces. Highly appreciated by a high-end clientele looking for really different models with strong personalities, the creations of the Lebanese Mohammed Ashi would largely deserve their place in the official calendar of Parisian haute couture.
A lover of art, Ashi has been offering since 2007 a wardrobe with timeless and yet modern elegance, in which architecture holds a large preponderance thanks to a pronounced taste for volumes. Far from the show-off of Lebanese fashion, Ashi gives priority to the work of the cut thanks to his workshops worthy of the greatest houses. If, as for his colleagues, the couturier has a passion for embroidery, his own are not just there to shine, they integrate into outfits to better transform them into works of art. Here the show off has no place, only refinement prevails.
Frédéric Blanc, photo stylist, press officer and fashion editor of Fashion-spider, the magazine specialized in fashion and beauty, is one of the key figures of Paris.