Fall 2015 Haute Couture: Alexis Mabille Celebrates ‘The Client’

Haute Couture is often defined by the craftsmanship used to create a gown, the thousands of hours spent by petite-mains on embroideries, the precious fabric used, but as this year, the 10th anniversary of his brand, Alexis Mabille wanted to highlight something else at the heart of haute couture: the client and the special relationship the couturier develops with her.

To illustrate his point Mabille reached out to 15 woman he’d had the opportunity to meet or work with during his career and then collaborated with each of them to create one outfit that would best illustrate their personality.

For the ageless former ballerina and actress Leslie Caron, he created an uber-elegant long lace sheath with hand-painted inserts in gradation of white to pink, red scarlet, and black with crystals, mother of pearl, and flower embroidery.

For burlesque dancer Dita von Teese, it was a long emerald green corseted sheath with plunging neckline and an alluring glass tube beaded scarf draped in the back. For ballerina Marie-Agnes Gillot, he created a long evening sheath in satin crepe heavily embroidered with fringes of beads in gradation of gray and black crystal that would create movement around her.

To present his collection, ‘Portraits of Women,’ Mabille chose the first-floor gallery of the Paris Opera and placed each outfit on mannequins in front of portraits of his “clients” wearing that dress shot by photographer Matthew Brookes. “I chose Matthew Brookes because he has a beautiful sensibility about portraiture, making his sitter beautiful but without too much retouching. Everyone is very real in these pictures and of course there are reference to John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini but very contemporary, I wanted to do timeless portraits, not fashion pictures, portraits that you could have forever on your walls,” the designer told Blouin Lifestyle at the presentation.

Oversized bows, Chantilly lace, flowers embellishments, the DNA of an Alexis Mabille design, could be found a plenty in this Fall 2015 Collection, along with the shades of various flattering pink.