Alaïa Finds American Beauty in New York
On Friday night, Alaïa became the first fashion label to stage a runway show inside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. It was also the first time that the French house staged a show in America since 1982, when founder Azzedine Alaïa presented his collection in New York at Bergdorf Goodman in front of Andy Warhol and Paloma Picasso and officially introduced his designs to the U.S. market. New York is where Mr. Alaïa opened his first store; it’s also the city that Alaïa’s current Creative Director, Pieter Mulier, lived for a time when he was working alongside Raf Simons at Calvin Klein.
When the doors to the museum opened for the show, it felt like a sentimental homecoming for the house, one with extraordinary grandeur. Guests were seated on large circular ottomans at the base of the museum’s iconic rotunda, supermodels Linda Evangelista, Amber Valletta, and Naomi Campbell among them. Rihanna was there, too, turning up just ahead of the show’s start time wearing a white corset and glittering beaded knit shawl. As soon as she sat and the piano music began to play, models descended the spiral ramps of the museum’s main halls.
Mulier’s incredible Winter-Spring 2025 collection was a continuation of his exacting design vernacular, which focuses on form and movement. This time, however, Mulier infused clever references to American sportswear masters like Clare McCardell and Halston and utilized denim and fluid jersey fabrics to move freely with the body. There were no zippers or button closures on any of the garments.
Silk taffeta was pleated in dramatic fashion a la Charles James, and second-skin bandeau bras were styled with ruffled and asymmetrical skirts as well as billowy pants worn low on the hip. Mulier also showed spectacular dresses and coats that were sculpted in such a way that they snaked and coiled around the bodices and torsos of the models “like magic tricks,” as the designer wrote in his show notes.
“For me, American beauty means freedom, of body and spirit,” Mulier also wrote. He added, “This collection is about honoring tradition alongside modernity. It’s a celebration of an American ideology of dress, and through that a spirit that can unite New York and Paris, of the body in motion, liberated.”
As much as this Alaïa collection was about homage and homecoming, it was also about looking to the future. Mulier and his team invited students from FIT, Parsons, and Pratt to attend the show, and it’s easy to imagine these future designers taking inspiration from the extraordinary techniques they were able to witness. Opening the doors for a new generation of fashion visionaries? There’s nothing more beautiful or American than that.
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