Watching Pieter Mulier’s fall Alaia show made a stupendous emotional and intellectual impact. As his women walked across the mirrored floor of the Paris boutique, their spiraling, sculptural clothes sent a shiver of surprise around the room. You saw a progression of astonishingly innovative techniques, drapes, and silhouettes aligning. The female body and a sophisticated mentality were being connected in a way that felt like a class apart. It was a departure from anything that fashion has been showing in the past season, or indeed, from what Mulier has shown at the house before.
Surrounded by the clamor of congratulations, Mulier explained the thread that united everything—both technically and conceptually. From the looped yarns of the deconstructed knitwear that opened the show, to the sculptural topiary-like forms of coats, to the asymmetrical dresses through the multi-layered trousers at the end, “everything is made from one material: merino wool. I’ve been working on it for a year, with only a couple of suppliers. It’s based on circles. It’s simple,” he claimed. “Very simple!”
It seems odd to describe something as technically exceptional and mathematically mind-blowing as this collection as “simple,” but you understood what he was getting at. It takes a kind of genius to go so deeply into experimental territory and not lose sight of what they’re saying with it. “It’s moving on. I mean, we did va-va-voom for two-and-a-half years, and I still love it, but it’s not the moment where the world is now,” Mulier said. “ It’s…how can you say it properly? It’s less sexualized, but still sensual.”
He captured that sensibility ingeniously. Draped tops fell asymmetrically in elegant folds; minimalist skirts and dresses were looped and wrapped, sarong-like, to show a leg. A black jumpsuit seemed to be made of one continuous piece, gathered into a halter in front, leaving the back bared. Knitted turtleneck tabard sweaters showed slivers of naked torsos in passing. “I love that you’re covered, you’re covered completely—but then you show something.”
Up until now, Mulier’s collections have shown the tension and difficulty of paying homage to the letter of Azzedine Alaia’s storied archive. That was a hard road to follow. With this move forward he effectively entered creative territory of his own, while still honoring the lofty principle of making an exceptionally-designed wardrobe for a modern Alaia woman.
Mulier’s salutes to Azzedine’s style were there all right—in the snaps he used in a polka-dot pattern; in the woolen puffs on glove-gauntlets; in his use of denim in curviform jeans and of jacquard animal patterns. But with this collection, he’s reached the point where he showed he can fly by his own lights.
