Haute Couture is fancy. And just over 10 years ago, it almost disappeared altogether as more and more designers quit doing their couture collections. In 2002, the 150 year-old tradition (dating back to the 1860s) was considered pretty much out of vogue and critics began to call it irrelevant when Yves Saint Laurent famously held his last couture show. After that, more and more designers began to stop doing Haute Couture. But due to a surprisingly growing market in recent years, because of some major foreign investment, it seems to be back and is practically thriving. In fact, the Haute Couture calendar in Paris has recently grown from 3 to 5 days and an increasing amount of young designers have started doing couture collections. Good news for fancy fashion lovers – and fancy fruits like moi.
Since his reign at Chanel began in the early 80s, Karl Lagerfeld is one legendary designer who’s always continued with the Haute Couture tradition (I’ll never forget some of his couture collections from the early to mid 90s with the supermodel greats). And his Fall 2014 Haute Couture collection is one of his best in recent memory. While he usually impresses with the heavily produced and dramatic sets for his presentations, the background this time was more paired down than we’ve seen recently.
It was the clothes that definitely stood out. They were beautifully constructed and the elaborate baroque embroidery was dramatic yet soft at the same time. In fact, concrete was the foundation for many of the designs, which made for a pretty cool dichotomy – concrete and couture. The silhouettes were sculpted and the details were lavish. And the contrast between the baroque aesthetic of the collection and the lightness of pieces, like shorts and sandals, worked surprisingly well. Once again, Lagerfeld successfully demonstrated what modern Haute Couture looks like.
What can we take away from this collection? Think lavish embroidery, baroque detail, and gold and silver accents paired with black and white. Also, when done well, shorts and sandals can be fancy.
Check out the full show below:
Some top looks are below. See a slide show of the full collection here.
Photos via style.com
Casey Wagar 