Typically, Haute Couture season is the time of the year for women that are interested in fashion to get into oneiric worlds of different brands. This collections are full of craftsmanship and innovations that follow certain rules by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. The garments are all constructed by hand and every garment should be made in a concrete amount of time. There need to be a certain amount of employees working for the brand in special ateliers. A new wave is being constructed by new designers that are not accepted by the French association because they do not follow a certain rule, but they still design garments that are considered haute couture because their enormous effort in the making and in the conceptual part of it. Iris Van Herpen is the greatest representation of this group.
But in this article we are not going to going to talk about the monopoly of the association, if not about the big amount of proposals that are getting the masculine side of the society in this runway shows in this last Haute Couture seasons and this last one the most. Finally, menswear is going to have an space to dream about what fashion can become for them, a new understanding.
The Balenciaga FW22 Couture was inspired by the idea of the new Internet culture and streetwear, Demna Gvasalia presented the collection as his take on Haute Couture. His first show for Balenciaga was a reminiscent of Cristobal Balenciaga’s work, but this time he took this opportunity to express his love for fashion and for his friends and family. He managed to create statement streetwear pieces following the process that the French association required to follow. Metaverse and fashion is represented in the catwalk, along a journey through fashion history.
The Valentino FW22 Couture show was a ode to how the maison was made in his origins and it express all the lexicon of the brand in the garments presented. Pierpaolo Piccioli mastered at reference all the pieces that made the brand who it is now. Following the requirements of the French association he had started to make an emphasis in menswear, but always with the idea that gender neutrality is in the core of all his work. The Beginning is how is called the collection and it talks about what a new start represent for something or someone and that it means that a future is coming fresh and new.
The Jean Paul Gaultier FW22 Couture show was in collaboration with Olivier Rousteing, the creative director of Balmain, and he expressed his love for the designer in a retrospective way, taking as references the moments of the brand that had impacted him the most through out his life. Being the third designer that takes the iconic house to reinvent their codes and make it couture is not easy, but for Olivier was a dream come true because his love for the work of Gaultier is true and sincere. The menswear looks were represented in first part of the show with the inspiration from the tattoo collection of 1994, that is selected by the designer for the freedom that it represented back them and how diversity was a worry in the Gaultier world back then, just as Balmain works in the moment.
The Maison Margiela 2022 Couture was a show that is inspired by the horrors of life with nightmares, different kind of assaults and more; but always with a historic perspective just as every body of work from the current designer at the brand. John Galliano has stated that this collection is more personal to him that others and it kind of represent his life (he is making a documentary about it that is going to be released in a year or so). The presentation was magical and after two years of virtual shows, the first one live is one for the books. It is a mix of theatre, movie and fashion. The public was attending to a a drama with a full on story and they could see it in real life or through big screens that were in the location. It made fashion the perfect canvas to tell stories in interesting and new ways. Menswear was expressed along the masculine character of the story in great outerwear and fully deconstructed pieces.
Alvaro Ramos