Pity the designer who had to follow Raf Simons blockbuster debut at Dior. Today, that task fell to Alexis Mabille, and the Frenchman suffered by the comparison. A beauty look that had his models sporting crescent moon hairdos with diamanté brooches suspended from their tips did him no favors, but the collection s more fatal flaw was its lack of focus.
Backstage, Mabille said he was "imagining women as jewels." That gave him his far-ranging color palette—malachite to opal to topaz to platinum—and an excuse to lay the sequins on thick. Beyond that, it was hard to connect the dots between the show-opening clingy black jersey dress trimmed in 600 buttons and the finale look in nude crepe veiled in a silvery organza. Still, there were a few winners in the mix. The long-sleeved velvet number with slits on the front and back of the bodice and batwing sleeves stood out for its simplicity. There s beauty in diversity, sure, but a strong point of view is everything in fashion, as Simons made so clear at Dior. Mabille s collection didn t have enough of that.
