The Season of Ethereal Couture

It is difficult, as well as wrong, when it comes to Haute Couture, to lump everything together. If the naturally more commercial world of ready-to-wear can be divided into strands and trends, the more artistic nature of couture, its opulence but also its hyper-personal nature, do not allow one to really reason in terms of general trends. Each couturier has his or her own language and that's enough - but in the collections that have been on the runway over the past few days, a certain kind of vaporous, tendentially white (with exceptions), often delicate-looking, often transparent and impalpable gown has continued to return. While a white wedding gown is traditional in every Haute Couture collection, usually at the close, what is striking about the collections of the last few days is that, regardless of any personal flair, this ethereal couture has returned in the most unexpected guises. At Schiapparelli, for example, where the emphasis on material richness and texture is always strong, Adut Akech walked the runway in an unusual gown composed of bustier and impalpable silk crepeline while an earlier, more sculptural look was a huge cloud-like white angora coat. The usually overworked Charles de Vilmorin filled his show with delicate veils, swans, and horses out of rococo, meringue-like stuccoes; while working with different concepts both Armani Privé and Thom Browne, Alexandre Vauthier, Iris Van Herpen, and Chanel included transparencies and extreme lightness in some of their looks. A sculptural white gown covered in ostrich feathers appeared in Balenciaga's icy collection worn by Amber Valletta, and even the independents did not spare themselves: Georges Hobeika, Tamara Ralph, and Stéphane Rolland all included angelic, evanescent looks in their shows. Dominating the trend, however, was Maria Grazia Chiuri with a collection so muted and diaphanous that it seemed bloodless.

Schiapparelli Fall 2023 Couture

Fendi Fall 2023 Couture

Valentino Fall 2023 Couture

Thom Browne Fall 2023 Couture

Tamara Ralph Fall 2023 Couture

Stèphane Rolland Fall 2023 Couture

Iris Van Herpen Fall 2023 Couture

Giambattista Valli Fall 2023 Couture

Georges Hobeika Fall 2023 Couture

Elie Saab Fall 2023 Couture

Dior Fall 2023 Couture

Charles de Vilmorin Fall 2023 Couture

Balenciaga Fall 2023 Couture

Armani Privè Fall 2023 Couture

Alexandre Vauthier Fall 2023 Couture

There were also references to deconstruction, reductionism, and classicism in designers' statements. Giambattista Valli told Vogue that «modernity is rooted in classicism»; Virginie Viard wrote in her press release: «Sophistication and simplicity, permanence and beauty». Van Herpen wanted «the garments to live, move, and breathe» while Daniel Rosenberry wrote that he had «found freedom in the individual pieces, broken down». And Thom Browne wanted, for the white suit that closed the show, «the maximum translucency». But perhaps it was Alexandre Vauthier, who presented only one of these ethereal white dresses in a very precise and concrete collection, who said things best by stating: «I’m not a reductionist, but the state of the world, the noise and the harshness surrounding us is pushing me towards a quest for balance, for grounding my work in its essential foundations. […] It’s not the time for opulence». It is clear that whiteness and lightness have not been the foundation of all these collections - not the less it is indicative that so many different designers have, some more and some less, wanted to evoke through such different narratives a common feeling of vaporousness, simplicity and purity. But beyond the obvious sense of wonder that a Haute Couture gown always wants to (or should) evoke, does this occasion represent more a vision of an "angelic woman" that designers want to propose to us, or do they rather reflect a need for escapism that fails to be fully realized?

Looking at the different collections, one could perhaps say that this sense of virginal candor often clashes with more immediately practical needs: beyond the obvious flutterings of style, the Haute Couture seen in the last few days had a decidedly no-nonsense orientation. Given the insatiable hunger of the world's elites for luxury, the fact that this Couture Week is one of the largest and busiest ever organized, it would perhaps not be too far-fetched to speculate that the Haute Couture clientele is growing numerically in new key-markets such as the Arab Gulf countries (one of the leitmotifs of the week was the entry of Arab couturiers into the Paris ecosystem, with a mega-exhibition at the Musée de la Cité, an extra-luxury cocktail party at the Ritz, and the official debut of Ashi Studio on Thursday) or in India - and it is likely that the select and very wealthy Haute Couture customers in Paris want the dream of fairy-tale gowns without having to deal with excessive discomforts typical of the avant-garde.

The immediate romanticism of these ethereal looks therefore could represent a way of sublimating a Haute Couture that in so many cases tends more and more toward an everyday register, moving closer to its primal conception of "bespoke dress" (think of how in the 1950s, for example, Mona Bismark had gardening clothes made by Balenciaga) suited to the arguably more everyday use of it. Are we about to leave quiet luxury and enter the brave new world of "true luxury" the one in which craftsmanship fuels desire? If the growth in the value of a brand like Hermès, which this year became the second most valuable fashion company in the world after LVMH and before Nike, is a valid indicator, we might perhaps think that in a few years there will be nothing but Haute Couture dresses in the wardrobes of the world's richest women. Mona Bismarck and her Balenciaga garden suits, at this point, could not seem more modern