All Hail Couture

Dynamic dressing returns to the runway with Fall Couture 2021, a season of pathbreaking debuts and collections that broke convention; a breath of fresh energy into otherwise tired dress codes. Here’s what stood out for us

- TANYA MEHTA

FOR THE PEOPLE

Demna Gvasalia’s debut was a conspicuous reminder that couture doesn’t always have to look pretty. It, in fact, made you ponder, and question everything you thought you knew about it. After all, where would a grey hoodie and a pair of jeans walk alongside a prim taffeta gown worn with gloves up to the elbows? At the Balenciaga show, you would have seen all that and more. In an old-world salon, with no background music, the models trotted down stiffly, their footsteps and the shuffling swathes of fabric were the only sound. The creative designer struck a perfect balance – he dipped into the archives and flourished the collection with the magnificent chapeaux, draped evening dresses, and ballooned silhouettes, all alluding to the Cristóbal Balenciaga golden age. But, the showcase would be incomplete without some whimsy of his own. Replete with power pieces, we saw an off-shoulder trench dress, and a sea of black suits embellished with fresh flowers and brooches. There was a rather morbid feathered coat that was a sartorial equivalent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds, a boxy black T-shirt that was anything but basic and then a series of voluminous, fuzzy bathrobes – all in curious shades of putrid yellow, soiled ivory, and a very sickly pink. Big, big shoulders and puddled hem trousers were sported by a motley crew of models. It was thought-provoking, inclusive, and oddly alienating, all at once.

QUEEN OF MY OWN CASTLE