Schiaparelli

Opulence and simplicity define Schiaparelli. The collection explores this defining essence through the strength of each of its founding elements, with lightness and glee. A new purity appears this season. The focus is on endlessly dividing, getting to the core and revealing sensuality and subdued exuberance.

Japanese kimonos and Chinese hanfus, worn at home by Elsa Schiaparelli, echo her creations: splendour with a rigorous cut. Their fabrics, colours, prints and textures make one almost forget their perfect geometrical architecture. Pop graphic shapes and a strong femininity borrow from Guy Bourdin and Jean Cocteau what the bold Far-East aesthetic seem to hide. The small red lips of a geisha evoke a vibrant shocking pink heart. Playing with such expressive visuals allows the House symbols such as pierced hearts, padlocks and suns to be centre-stage.

Yulia Yanina

The SS17 Yulia Yanina collection is a love story between a ballerina and a Spanish matador. Corrida, considered as an art, embodies the spirit of a whole country and the ballet, with its dramas and poetry, reflects the mysterious Russian soul.

In Yulia Yanina’ new collection, we got acquainted with these countries through loving eyes: those of one falling in love and those that make the world becomes brighter and more beautiful.

In SS17 Collection, dresses convey the thoughts of a ballet dancer dreaming of her matador and the tenderness of a woman looking at the world through her loving eyes. She feels anxious for her beloved hero, involved in a death fight with the bull, and dances under the stars for lover. She whirls for him in a layered veil dress as the ones of a Prima Ballerina.

Stephane Rolland 

Within a single collection, I unconsciously link together different periods in the history of art, from Michelangelo to Rodin, and, nearer our days, from Rodin to Brancusi.

Brancusi, with his ovoid sculptures, inspires me to aim at anatomic precision, symbolizing the birth of the world. Thus, monumental, yet slender dome gazar and faille dresses come into being, along with flowing hoods shaped like proud manes or pure gold halos surrounding the bust.

Asymmetrical, the silhouette is deliberately incomplete. An organza flame arises red from a hip, or white from a breast. Like marble sculptures, other sparks shoot out of a Coupole skirt like the “bird in space” sculpted in 1923.

Rami Al Ali 

Syrian designer, Rami Al Ali, makes a return to the French Capital today to showcase his Spring/Summer 2017 couture collection in the idyllic setting of the Hotel Ritz Paris. A visualization of elegance and creativity, Al Ali looks to the marveling beauty of the iconic Sakura flowering tree to provide a fusion of sensuality, technique and art.

Inspired by the Cherry Blossom, and the representation of the fragility and attractiveness of life in the Land of The Rising Sun, the collection offers an array of traditional and visual statements. The couturier sets the blooming flower as a backdrop to convey the ephemerality inherent in life, and one’s transition through the years. Employing a stunning display of colours and exhibiting the house’s mastery in materials, the collection sheds light to the luminosity of youth and the movement of such attributes as vigor and maturity with the passage of time.

A striking look inspired by the oriental kimono pays ode to the intimacy within, shielded by a strong exterior, by utilizing a splendid mixture of textures and layers. Luxurious fabrics are swept around the body with multi-layers of soft tulle, satin and lame, whilst consideredhand cut embellishment is used implementing an overall charm. The collection is strewn with bows imitating the storied flower within the structure and through the silhouette.

Zuhair Murad

A journey to Japan inspired Zuhair Murad’s Spring-Summer 2017 Couture collection, in particular the spellbinding fireworks the House founder and artistic director witnessed on the island of Miyajima. An explosion of coloured light cloaked with the darkest night, then reflected in the shadowy waters below. This is the harmony, the silken thread, running throughout the collection.

Delicately re-embroidered Swarovski Crystals become incandescent filaments lighting up a jade taffeta creation sensually enveloping around the body. The waves lapping the island are transformed into organic draping; knotting and pleating poetically figure the foamy breakers. The colours are natural, only more intense: moss green, fiery red, pink fuchsia, boldly contrasted with consummate skill.

The sky, crackling with Lurex electricity, or in soie perlée, adorns, here a slip dress, there a corseted ball gown. For a contemporary twist, a nod in the direction of the eighties delivers a more angular structure, with bouffant sleeves, coattails, and DJ details richly decorated with beads. The coming-together of the natural and the modern – timelessly elegant, opulently contemporary: such is the 2017 couture of Zuhair Murad.

Ulyana Sergeenko

A herald of fashion-making as engaging storytelling, Ulyana Sergeenko creates captivating tales by drawing unexpected parallels between seemingly distant times. This season paganism and slavic folklore are the frame for a surprising merging of fatal characters culled from ancient legends, and powerful women inspired by the photos of Helmut Newton and Steven Meisel. The Ulyana Sergeenko heroine, thereafter, sheds romanticism to get a new skin. She is an unattainable and dangerous temptress, the inhabitant of misty, enchanted forests. However empowered and fierce, she keeps a whimsical outlook on matters of style. She’s both dangerous and playful.

This season, again, Ulyana Sergeenko collaborates with milliner Stephen Jones on headwear that carries and expands the fairytale mood of the collection. A series of swimming hats embroidered with crystals or woven with fine threads like sparkling cobwebs crown the head of the Ulyana Sergeenko temptress – queen of the sea, of the ponds and the forests.