5 March 2025 |
Returning to Paris Fashion week following a one-season stopover in New York, Pieter Mulier served up a study in contrasts for his AW25 Alaïa offering – hard and soft, past and future, structure and fluidity.
Set within the Alaïa atelier, models wove through a maze of creative manifestation encountering, on occasion, Dutch artist Mark Manders’ fragmented, time-worn sculptures. “Manders’ work fascinates me,” Mulier writes. “Each of his sculptures seem itself a work either in progress, or marked by the passage of an imaginary time, reminiscent at once of many different cultures. And that idea of a non-linearity – of space, and of time – was inspiring. The idea of codes of beauty outside of any era or geography, free of boundaries, is innately keyed to the philosophy of Alaïa, our identity.”
Riffing off of this, a triptych of sculptural, monastic looks opened the show. Pouf hoods created a halo effect around models’ heads while sheer mesh clung to angular figures like albumen, creating an alien-esque mood. Then, bulging reptilian spines (that were actually elongated 3D ruffs or padded tubing) snaked around shoulders and necks like jumbo lapels.
Mulier’s signature precision met a newfound sense of opulence. Clownish crinolines jutted out at the hip, their exaggerated volume cascading into fluid pleats. Sharp colourblocking added edge, while shaggy fur coats wrapped the body in cocoon-like softness. Leather fringe skirts swayed like exoskeletons, and layered silhouettes mirrored “the topography of the female form.”
Mulier described the collection as a meditation on history, geography, and above all, women. “The message is about singularity, individuality, the eternal strength and resilience of women, empowering them through their clothes,” he penned. “That always inspired Azzedine, and it always inspires me – the strength of beauty.” Strength and sensuality, fragility and power – each piece was a tension of opposites, made to be worn, lived in, moved in.
Photography courtesy of Alaia.
