Shown on a bridge between the maison’s first home and its new boutique, Pieter Mulier’s Winter-Spring 2023 collection drew from the past – Alaïa’s, but also wider – and reimagined it for the present
, after all, worked to nobody’s schedule bar his own. He habitually showed his collections weeks later than other designers, refusing to kowtow to industry pressure, sure that a loyal cadre of fans and buyers would show up – on time – whenever he called. He also gave his interim collections, the ones other houses dub pre-fall or cruise, the rather more evocative title of ‘intemporel’ – timeless.
So time for Mulier is elastic: he draws from the past – Alaïa’s, but also wider – and reimagines it for the present. Meaning that a sinuously seamed tailored dress with a 1940s feel may be executed not in wool, but rather latex, a material that today holds the same unexpected erotic power as leather did for Alaïa in the 70s and 80s.
Mulier’s own provocation had a timelessness, too – you thought of postwar pin-ups, of the kink purveyed by Malcolm McLaren andin their shop SEX in the 70s . The focus on … well, let’s be blunt, the arse, was a direct echo of Alaïa’s own fixations; including a neat nod to a scandalous bathing suit of his early years that was cut so high on the leg it exposed the whole rear. Here, it was worn as a body under semi-sheer skirts.
It all reminded me of the letter of intent the photographer Terence Donovan wrote to Robert Palmer’s record company in 1986, describing his director’s treatment for the video to Palmer’s forthcoming single: “I would simply dress a group of international models in Azzedine Alaïa dresses. This designer at the moment produces clothes that make men become quite irrational and women seem to admire him. He understands the linear engineering of a woman's body unlike any other designer.
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