Hubert de Givenchy was the force behind Azzedine’s collections being championed as fashion treasure.
Between the airy veils, wafting as if in a summer breeze, the clothes come in pairs. There is an Azzedine Alaïa black dress from 2007 suspended from narrow straps and, beside it, an elegant 1960 wool crepe dress with bows at the back. Cristóbal Balenciaga of course!
That display, shown in Alaïa’s former home in Paris on the rue de la Verrerie, was easy to judge. But what about another duo: two lacy dresses, one burgundy, the other black? I got that wrong by over half a century (1950 and 2015) in this fascinating game of two designers who shared a passion for fashion skills.
“Alaïa and Balenciaga: Sculptors of Form” (until 28 June 2020) has a story hidden in the forest of veils and the delicately arranged display by curator Olivier Saillard.
© Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty
“In 1968, Azzedine bought his first Cristóbal dress, and from that moment on he started to collect masters of fashion history,” explained Carla Sozzani, the retailer, fashion and art curator who was so close to the late designer that he called her his “sister”.
© Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty
“In 2007, Azzedine, Christoph (Von Weyhe, Alaïa’s life-time partner) and I founded Association Azzedine Alaïa to be a Foundation of Public Interest,” Carla explained. “The mission is to preserve his work, his archives, and the collections he had been slowly building all his life, since the mid-60s, in art, design, and fashion. There are now over 22,000 pieces of Azzedine’s works and about 12,000 of the masters of couture he collected.”
© Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty
But the current exhibition might never have taken place without Hubert de Givenchy. “He came to see Christoph and me a few months after Azzedine passed away, to tell us, in Azzedine’s kitchen, of his admiration for only these two masters, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Azzedine Alaïa. He wanted to do an exhibition about these two great couturiers in a ‘conversation’.”
Givenchy passed away only a few weeks later, but his dream became reality as Carla, Christoph and Saillard went through the 450 Balenciaga outfits that Alaïa had gathered, while at the same time translating the essence of those designs into the development of his own work.
“The show is about this transmission,” said Carla, who is also involved in the current 2020 Alaïa fashion collection, which was shown to international buyers during the January Spring/Summer 2020 couture season. In a further chapter to the story, Balenciaga's owners, Kering, announced that the house will once again show haute couture, from this July.
As further proof that fashion can be eternal, an Edition line, recreating Alaïa’s work from 1988, is part of the new collection. The clothes from the past include a tuxedo jacket over a long pleated skirt and a revival of the jumpsuit.
© Karim Sadli/Courtesy of Alaïa
Carla said, “Since Azzedine passed away, as President of the Association, my involvement is in bringing forward, in this period of transition, the heritage and the legacy of Azzedine’s work with the archives, the studio and the ateliers.”
© Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty
“Alaïa et Balenciaga, Sculpteurs de la Forme” is at the Association Azzedine Alaïa, 18 rue de la Verrerie, Paris 75004 until 28 June 2020 (associationazzedinealaia.org)
All products featured on the website are independently selected by our Editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Zaloguj się, aby zostawić komentarz.