Haute Couture: The Fall/Winter Collections

Gladys Rodríguez-Dod
Exclusively By Rex Fabrics
Fine Fabrics from Around the World

Paris… Once again the City of Lights dresses up for a week to enjoy the Haute Couture fashion shows, where the most prominent designers present their creations, where they have poured out all their fantasies, as well as their souls.

Haute Couture is the most favorable scenario for the great designers to test their creations… some of them out of this world…! but others simply spilling glamour, sophistication and great chic. Just a handful are members of the Chambre Syndicalle (trade union), an organization that gathers talent, publicists and international journalists, and regulates what is really High Fashion or Haute Couture. Twice a year the designers must present a minimum of designs, have a fashion house or atelier, and employ a particular number of persons dedicated to this art, considered French patrimony, and created in French soil and using its traditional techniques, mostly handmade.

Later these designs will be honed and simplified, and will be displayed in the ready-to-wear shows. It is a small industry generating as much publicity as possible for the fashion houses that, besides fashion, market perfumes and beauty products.

Each season the trade union publishes a calendar presenting the few member designers that constitute the group, but they also invite other designers, who have already proven their talent and elegance.

The latest collections saw a greater simplicity in designs, rather rare being the Winter collections, the season when the designers’ talent overflows with fantasy. But we can’t deny life has changed and not that many women are willing to spend… one hundred thousand dollars in just one model! It doesn’t mean in any way that the designs are not a fine display of true glamour, luxury, opulence and fantasy in the most marvelous textures, unexpected cuts and diverse colors. They are the maximum of French chic and a tribute to the fashion world.

In VALENTINO we saw beautiful designs in spectacular brocades or embroidered in precious stones. Ralf Simons for CHRISTIAN DIOR scored great success with his strapless designs in tones like emerald green. Seeming to be very simple at a glance, they consist of marvelous cuts with paneled skirts and show special details such as very thin belts cinching the waistline. And, to his merit, Karl Lagerfeld updated, as never before, the CHANEL style, and we see now chiffon dresses and outfits in gray prints, light as the breeze, but with huge black belts worn on the hips, thus creating a dramatic effect and, at the same time, elegant.

Giorgio Armani described his collection for ARMANI PRIVE as “naked”, and the designs, whether for day or evening, come in flesh colored tones that seem very sexy and chic. The evening designs come with simply spectacular appliqués.

ZUHAIR MURAD had Kristen Stewart sitting on front row. We can imagine the young star in one of his gowns, especially an old rose colored one, all exquisitely embroidered to the maximum.

ATELIER VERSACE is still presenting a very modern and sophisticated fashion, now the work of Donatella Versace. In her hands the wine color bordeaux gains a very modern and opulent look, especially when it entails embroidery with beads and stones.

The halls of Brongniart Palace was the perfect backdrop for Lebanese EKIE SAAB’s runway show, since the beauty of his fashions leave us breathless. His designs in red tulle, genially embroidered, sporting a V neckline and a small belt tightening the curves will be seen in the most important salons around the world. Could one ask for more?