Paris Haute Couture Week is under way and runs until Thursday.
More than just another round of fashion shows, haute couture is the pinnacle of creativity, where designers can imagine the most fantastical creations – testing the skill of their atelier – for a client untroubled by price tags.
Some houses have couture clients who demand a wardrobe that will take them through every aspect of their day. Others turn to couture for evening wear that speaks volumes about its wearer.
Here are some of the highlights from the show in the French capital.
Ashi Studio
Ashi Studio's autumn couture show, titled A Different Skin, featured Victorian-era mourning rituals and masquerades as its focal point.
As the Saudi label celebrates its 20th anniversary, it is using this show to explore transformation and metamorphosis through a refined gothic lens.
It was dramatic, with vintage corseting and boning techniques creating shapes that stood proud on the body, almost like armour. Designer Mohammed Ashi utilised feathers, raffia, moire taffeta, shredded chiffon and lace to conjure beautiful looks.
The palette of earthy browns, smoke greys, dusty shredded ivories and black added to the sense of exquisite dishevelment.
A drop-waist corseted look came with a puffed taffeta kick-flare skirt, while more corseting was covered in brown snakeskin and polished to a deep shine. Cream resin became cracked body armour, edged with coiled feathers, as more feathers – now in chocolatey brown – smothered a high-shouldered, fitted dress with wings.
Like something from a gothic dream, Ashi transported his audience to a decadently faded, otherworldly place.
Georges Hobeika
Lebanese label Georges Hobeika delivered its collection, The Visitor, on the opening day.
In what may yet emerge as a trend, it reworked the torso with tight corsetry wrapped in delicate lace or gleaming satin.
The fabric created an exaggerated new width as the father-and-son designer duo played lightly with proportions through folds, pleats and netted skirts.
Necklines were key throughout this show. Layers of sheer, scalloped fabric, weighted with beading, also shifted proportions into swaying tiers.
One rigid body was covered in a mosaic of beading, while another dress – drop-waisted and backless – was made entirely from fluid silver beads.
This was about nighttime decadence, told through column dresses, sheath cuts and a few theatrical full skirts, which started at the hips rather than the waist.
With a palette of champagne, sea blue, eau-de-nil, pale moss, teal and plenty of silvery beads, every outfit seemed to shimmer, like fish scales in water.
Catering to a woman with a busy evening calendar, the Lebanese label knows how to deliver endless offerings that are striking yet delicate and refined.
Rahul Mishra
In arguably his most India-inspired work to date, New Delhi-based designer Rahul Mishra delivered a couture collection that drew on ancient goddesses, statues and divinities.
Trompe l'oeil appeared to be carved from stone and was finished with embroidered arches and even painted faces as he recalled the dancers and goddesses chiselled into temple rock centuries ago.
He mixed this with embroidery to suggest choli blouses and the drapery of saris – rendered as looping beading that hung in ropes from hips and shoulders – or as stitched pleats tracing the contours of hips and legs.
The central pleat (called a fan or Thavani) of Bharatanatyam dancers became a recurring motif, as a beaded design around the hips or fashioned into long, gossamer skirts, while the flowers of the Sala Tree – long associated with temple dancers – appeared scattered across long, fitted column dresses.
This sleek silhouette was punctuated by a handful of dramatic departures: a sensual swath of black taffeta tumbling from the hips; a wide undulating skirt in black devore velvet that evoked a giant parasol; and the kick-flare hem of a mermaid gown, delicately scattered with flowers.
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