Vionnet (Q3647)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
French fashion house
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Vionnet |
French fashion house |
Statements
2009
designer
2015
member of creative team for ready-to-wear
For the presentation of her Spring Vionnet collection, Goga Ashkenazi opened her opulent Milan residence, located in a lavish 16th-century palazzo in the city center, complete with substantial garden and full-fledged swimming pool. The mouth-gaping effect of being transported to such a wondrous location was already enough, but Ashkenazi, never one to skimp on theatrical effects, had a series of huge glass cases built and placed on the lawns and inside the apartment (which, by the way, was full of first-rate artworks by Richard Prince, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn, and others). Inside the cases, like trapped butterflies, were models clad in Vionnet’s flimsy draped concoctions. Some had iPhones in hand, seemingly busy-not-busy, relentlessly Instagramming and hashtagging themselves, the guests, and the surroundings, in social media–induced isolation. “It’s a long-format fashion performance about the social media bubble we’re living in,” mused Ashkenazi.Once recovered from the sensory overload and extricated from the exegesis provided by the designer, this reviewer tried to concentrate on the caged collection, which actually made much more sense than the slightly preposterous explanatory blabber. A series of column dresses in Vionnet’s signature plissé silk tulle in diaphanous colors with finely draped bodices looked absolutely gorgeous in their Grecian-inspired classicism. The parachute belts cinching the models’ tiny waits added an unexpected yet plausible touch.A few soft-tailored options gave the lineup a balanced variety, such as a fluid pantsuit in technical taffeta, printed with a shaded crosshatch motif inspired by the childhood game of tic-tac-toe while (quoting the quite abstruse press notes here) “hinting at Internet programming codes seen in the third dimension.” Third dimension or not, it looked rather cool in its off-kilter theatricality.
21 September 2018
The ’80s Memphis group’s postmodern aesthetic has inspired countless fashion designers, last but not least Vionnet’s Goga Ashkenazi, who referenced its graphic approach for Resort. She handled it quite lightly, blending the graceful fluidity of Madeleine Vionnet’s signature cutting techniques with a modern take on geometric plays of draping and folding.The collection was built around a series of multipurpose items, “timeless and with no definite daywear or evening-only connotations,” Ashkenazi explained. Yet a pair of gorgeous long dresses in finely pleated, filmy silk tulle with wrapped bodices screamed red carpet, while a beautiful goddess-appropriate white silk jersey number sensually draped around the body seemed decidedly better suited for a night of glamour than for a meeting in the boardroom.There was plenty to like in the collection; a series of dresses with a black-and-white–printed grid was cut with swirling geometric panels at the back or at the sides, yet each looked easy to wear and unfussy. A sensuous masculine vibe was perceived in a roomy black jersey jumpsuit worn with a satin harness-bra, while a fluid double-breasted pantsuit printed in thin black-and-white stripes had an elegant allure.Ashkenazi continued her quest for sustainability; she tries to be as ethically responsible and committed as possible, even if the path ahead isn’t easy. But being headstrong, she marches on. “In building our collections we use various sustainable channels,” she explained. “We manufacture everything in Italy; we buy GOTS-certified fabrics each season; we use repurposed or recycled materials; and we try to work mostly with suppliers or factories that have seriously pledged to sustainability.”
11 July 2018
For Vionnet’s Fall collection, Goga Ashkenazi was inspired by an obscure 17th-century Japanese tale of the underwater kingdom. “It’s about the metamorphosis of a mermaid,” she declared backstage before the show. The mermaid in question decides to become human, then gets scared and returns to the ocean, feels depressed about the whole business, and ultimately accepts her desire to become human, living happily ever after. Playing by the book to reinforce the concept, Ashkenazi staged the show in Milan’s Civic Aquarium. A string of model-mermaids emerged from the pitch-black obscurity, where countless backlit fish tanks were replete with every possible kind of swirling marine creature.The first few looks felt promising and were in keeping with the aquatic theme. A one-shoulder, long flowing organza dress was printed with a maybe-too-realistic scale motif, yet seemed glamorous enough for the red carpet. A finely pleated see-through dress in a shade of algae was maybe a little forced in its construction, but it looked good on the redheaded model-mermaid wearing it. Elsewhere, long evening dresses had nicely draped bodices, referencing Madeleine Vionnet’s genial signature style.Then, as often happens at Vionnet, things got complicated. Out came an incongruous series of teddy city coats, ’80s-inspired pantsuits, non-descript silk dusters, and printed puffer-parkas worn over matching Lycra leggings. Even a massive shearling biker jacket joined the dysfunctional family. The simple question arising in this reviewer’s mind was: Who on earth would buy a shearling biker jacket from Vionnet? Or a culotte pantsuit?Ashkenazi has the means and the willpower to make Vionnet succeed, but she seems as lost as her mermaid. Vionnet should be a little jewel of a brand, making exquisite demi-couture (or actual couture, perhaps?) occasion dresses for discerning, deep-pocketed customers. The heritage is there, to be mined with good taste and a cultivated eye. There’s no need to venture into a fashion territory so full of sharks the poor mermaid would be swallowed in a nanosecond.
23 February 2018
Note to Vogue Runway editors: Maybe it’s time to take me off Vionnet. Because however determined I am when I start out—and however much ammunition Goga Ashkenazi hands me—I find it impossible to really decimate her collections. It’s not, I hasten to add, just because Ashkenazi is gorgeous, mysterious, and devastatingly rich: I’m no Duke of York (thank God). No, my weak point with Ashkenazi is her utter sincerity.Tonight she had swung it to be the first fashion house ever to hold its show in Santa Maria delle Grazie, the home of one of the world’s most revered artworks. With a breathtaking lack of creative scale, the notes on our seats in the cloister invited us to post Instas hashtagged #VionnetDaVinci. Sweet Lord, this wasn’tThe Last Supper—it was just the last collection before supper. Where was the perspective?Backstage, the hard mob from WWD maintained a poker face, but I totally melted. Ashkenazi talked in great detail about the Japanese inspiration of a collection that was perfectly fine. I nodded as if afflicted with neck spasms. There was a lot of cotton poplin, some of it embroidered with Japanese-style inspirational slogans and reliefs. There was a pretty amazing dress made of multicolored string you couldn’t wear anywhere except an oligarch’s wedding or a technicolor orgy. There were some totally lovely classically cut but apparently Japanese-inspired embroidered lattice dresses. There were many goddess swooshers. I admit defeat when it comes to this label under this mesmerizing impresario: I’m just a sucker for Vionnet. Can Maya do it next season?
22 September 2017
Across the road from the venue Vionnet had chosen for its first show in Milan rests Leonardo da Vinci’sThe Last Supper. Equally stunning; the master artist, engineer, and futurologist probably ate several suppers—and sunk several inspirational glasses of wine—at the very spot where we saw this collection. Casa Degli Atellani is the site of a vineyard given to Da Vinci in 1498, and its connection to this collection was classification, one of Leonardo’s many manias.Goga Ashkenazi took her theme—birds of paradise—and flew with it. The opening looks of plissé tulle were mostly nude except for notes of green and pink that flashed down the spine and across the chest. There were embroidered bird-of-paradise prints on the back of a white cloak and a tracksuit top. Illustrations of tropical birds from New Guinea, recorded and illustrated for a 19th-century edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica, were printed onto lamé dresses and pajamas.So how to classify a Vionnet woman? Well, apart from us dull hacks—the down-at-heel cooing and clashing pigeons of fashion—the crowd was rich, colorful, and dedicated to display.Eva Cavalli was there, and it was great to see her at a show again. But Goga Ashkenazi is not exclusively dedicated to out-of-your-league eveningwear for hot goddesses with a mien for the dramatic. She found a picture of the Vionnet atelier and a tooling factory—both staffed with women at work—that inspired the twisting shape, she said, to some of her pieces. It also catalysed the introduction of workwear (kind of) into the collection. A long denim skirt was cut in an original Vionnet pattern. Flounced jeans looked good. If one suppressed the sinister implications ofThe Birdssoundtrack peck-peck-pecking at your point of view, this was a collection of pieces for women of a certain persuasion—and credit score—in which to fly happily and colorfully through gilded life.
24 February 2017
Plastered on Goga Ashkenazi’s mood board were images of the Soviet dancer Maya Plisetskaya clad in a red draped peplum looking regal and hieratic. The artist was one of Madeleine Vionnet’s many aficionadas who appreciated the fluid, sensuous allure of her bias-cut dresses. “Sometimes people don’t even know what ‘cut on the bias’ means; they ask me: ‘What is it?’” said Ashkenazi in mock exasperation, while presenting her Pre-Fall collection. To address the problem, she decided it was time to give the fashion world a lesson in Vionnet’s basic vocabulary. Hence, words such asknife pleat,bias,fold,zigzag,draping,plissé, andappliquéwere stitched on the outfits, marking the corresponding technical detail in a sort of idiot-proof Fashion 101 description.For all the wordplay,restraintis a term that doesn’t really belong in Ashkenazi’s fashion dictionary. The new lineup showed the usual ebullience of concepts, ideas, and references. Although key heritage elements were visible in the elegant, elongated silhouettes of long pleated dresses in silk jersey, they were far less traceable in a series of boudoir-inspired robes de chambre in silk velvet, pajama suits, and lingerie-looking wrap dresses worn over high-cuffed denim pants or knee-length culottes. The same could be said of the plissé technique so inherent to Vionnet's language, whose luscious yet sculptural quality was just a faintmémoire. Cases in point were a couple of short black tiered dresses in mesh tulle and lace; they looked sweet and au courant, yet lacked the sensual, polished finesse one expects from such an historic house. The archive was mined extensively for shearling coats in bright colors cut with the handkerchief shape that was another famous couture technique chez Vionnet. Elsewhere, an old pattern was used to give a drapey shape to a midi denim dress, worn with a cashmere turtleneck.
24 January 2017
Following a few seasons of making optimistic excuses forVionnet, it was a pleasure to see a collection in which many of the looks proved positive affirmations of the passion behind this unfashionable fashion house. Goga Ashkenazi put the staff of her atelier on the runway for the finale and highlighted the depth of their work—and the shallowness of others—by stitching slogans into the back of certain looks. So on a fishtailed cloak with a quintuple-tiered hem worn above raw-edged denim bermudas was writtenThis piece took 194 hours to make. In a world where Zara makes fabulous jackets and only real experts can tell the difference between bespoke and off-the-rack, maybe you just have to spell it out.The schtick of this collection was loose—“urban odyssey”—but the pieces it inspired were often sharply defined. Fantastically light chiffon blurs, paneled pleat dresses gathered with rope, separates in beach photo prints (that were a little Orlebar Brown–y), and assertive denim interjections were the order of the day here. Neutral chiffon dresses and suits with nets of burnt-in rubber circlets were particularly interesting, and a dress of angularly set fringe-meets-coralesque tufting was just pretty. While not without flaw, this was a vastly improved Vionnet.
28 September 2016
“When I visited Monet’s garden at Giverny, I was awestruck by the painterly lush of mimosas,” said Goga Ashkenazi,Vionnet’s ebullient chairwoman and creative director. “It was the epitome of the modern garden; the Impressionists were such revolutionaries!” They were also Madeleine Vionnet’s contemporaries, so the references to their rule-breaking yet romantic aesthetic seemed appropriate enough. Yet Ashkenazi is no minimalist, and to consider only Monet as a starting point was clearly not an option. She paired the French master with Carmen Herrera, a totally opposite character, who is a Havana-born Abstract Minimalist aged 101 years and living in New York. And who said that two references were better than three? Certainly not Ashkenazi, who found an extra dose of inspiration at home, looking at her children’s elaborate puzzles. The tiny pieces had a geometric quality that appealed to the designer and seemed in sync with Madame Vionnet’s meticulous yet fluid construction.The mosaic-like motif became the geometric blueprint for the collection; it was expanded and exploded on embroideries and trimmings alongside bold black-and-white stripes and abstract patterns inspired by mimosas, whose saturated yellow hue lit the color palette. Madeleine Vionnet’s fondness for squares, rectangles, and triangles was reiterated in caftan-shaped tunics, which were given the signature sensual flair dear to her. Pleats and asymmetries were also big, often played together in the same outfit, generating bizarre yet compelling hybrids and assemblages. Case in point was a series of liquid caftans whose sides were alternatively undulating and structured. As is often the case at the new Vionnet, a little more editing would’ve been beneficial. Yet by now it has been extensively proved thatreducingandrestrainingare words that just don’t exist in Ashkenazi’s fashion vocabulary.
21 June 2016
“One of my sons was reading Jules Verne’sTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seafor school, and I was fascinated,” said Goga Ashkenazi, talking about the inspiration for Vionnet’s Pre-Fall collection. “It made me think of the fantastical beauty of sea creatures.” So Ashkenazi took Vionnet underwater, going sustainable along the way.Sustainability is a very serious topic, fashion being the second most polluting industry in the world after oil. With typical ebullience, Ashkenazi has become a full-on supporter of the cause. She threw herself (and her money) into researching recycled fibers from plastic bottles and animal-free leathers and furs; she even reused leftover stocks of old fabrics.Style-wise, the collection referred to the marine atmosphere of Verne’s classic novel. But as always chez Vionnet, the mood board was bursting with a plethora of ideas; Verne was joined not only by the dancer Isadora Duncan, but also by the tennis ace and activist Billie Jean King, who battled sexism in sport and society. Supporting sustainability and women’s rights: Definitely, Ashkenazi was full of good intentions.But back to the sea creatures. They crept over the bodice of a long lamé printed dress, exploding in a fan-shaped whirling anemone, and morphed into horizontal pleats on minidresses. A dress was entirely handmade with bi-color ribbons; they looked like tentacles of a futuristic octopus. The marine inspiration was even extended to prints, with tiny whales floating along empire mididresses.After all that, the designer relaxed into less experimental shapes, whose fluid, sculptural flair was more in keeping with Vionnet’s heritage. A silver lamé dress was ruched at the waist, its full skirt flowing at ankle-length, while a navy batwing number was entirely plissé, with a nice sense of movement. A statuesque black jersey column dress was cut like an elongated rectangle, while an eco-leather minidress had an asymmetrical trapeze shape.Yet Ashkenazi couldn’t resist indulging in au courant sporty accents, ubiquitous today in every collection. Here, they surfaced via tennis-inspired white ribbed cotton socks that accessorized almost every outfit. Madame Vionnet was herself a tennis fanatic, perhaps. Who knows? In any case, they seemed quite preposterous, detracting from the sense of sophisticated allure that should stay at the heart of Vionnet’s modern rendition.
31 January 2018
To present Vionnet’s Resort collection, Goga Ashkenazi switched into lecturing mode. She could’ve easily held a lesson on the Japanese aesthetic which was chosen as an inspiration, so extensive was her knowledge on the subject. It was fascinating listening to her, talking about the nine poetic principles of Japanese art:wabi-sabi(imperfection);miyabi(elegance);shibui(subtlety);iki(originality);hanami(beauty);jo-ha-kyu(rhythm);yugen(mystery); andenso(abnegation of self). It doesn’t seem easy to comply to the nine principles,ensobeing probably one of the hardest to abide for a fashion designer. But that’s just this reviewer’s opinion, of course.Ashkenazi blended Vionnet’s geometric construction with a soft edge, a nod to Japan’s graceful yet exacting visual culture. The square, the archetypal shape around which Madeleine Vionnet’s codes revolved, was the grounding pattern for long billowy dresses in nude chiffon with appliqué embroidery or in a silk net fabric in a vibrant shade of yellow. They looked fluid and graceful. Obis and kimonos were featured prominently throughout the lineup, best when presented with cropped pants for a clean look, as in a karate-inspired wrapped robe, which looked effortless except for in its execution, or as in a poncho with sporty accents. Both were sumptuously embroidered and painstakingly appliquéd with a mosaic of abstract petals and twigs on a whisper-thin silk tulle. Sakura leaves, the Japanese cherry blossom, inspired the bodices of long evening dresses; they had a floaty consistency, finely pleated with an inconspicuous sculptural touch in the Vionnet tradition. They looked lovely.
18 June 2017
Four months ago, Goga Ashkenazi acquired a 17,000-piece trove of previously unseenVionnetarchival fragments—photographs, drawings, fabrics, embroideries, buttons, and even bills—from Madeleine Chapsal, Madame Vionnet’s goddaughter. Backstage, looking at some of them on Ashkenazi’s mood board for this collection, you could see how voraciously they had been digested by the 21st-century Vionnet team. The stripes on a long angora intarsia smock echoed those on an original Vionnet. The wide V-neckline details that looped under a strap at the waist did so, too, as did the cutout panels on the chest of a shirt and dress. Ultimately, though, one suspects that the Chapsal-sourced rush of information—combined with a theme based on the piano, the harpsichord, and the accordion—was perhaps a bit too much to take in at once.On one dress, the V-neck had an unwieldy third pillar at the left shoulder, and the accordion-pleated chest plates at the end were awkwardly strapped to the dress below them. The opening piped trouser suit looks and a series of three Lurex sheen knitted dresses, conversely, were much stronger, perhaps thanks to their directness and relative simplicity.There was a point during the soundtrack of this collection when pipe organ, harpsichord, accordion, and piano were all competing for aural attention: Ashkenazi and her team needed to focus their cacophonous enthusiasm to strike fewer notes more sweetly, instead of hammering at everything at once. However, thanks to Ashkenazi, Vionnet today is a house driven by love—a commodity that’s relatively rare on an overwhelmingly cynical schedule—and that should not be dismissed lightly.
2 March 2016
Goga Ashkenazi, the owner and creative director ofVionnet, was as ebullient as ever at a presentation of the label’s Pre-Fall collection. After more than three years at the helm of one of the most revered Frenchmaisonsof all time, she still exudes the excitement and the energy of a kid in a toy store. An abundance of artistic references and muses of various types were called in to give substance to the new lineup, from the fashion plate Daisy Fellowes and the Op Art maestro Bridget Riley to the Spanish-Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí and the conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin. Ashkenazi has spared no expense in beefing up Vionnet’s archive and recently acquired a trove of original sketches, pictures, swaths of embroidered fabrics, and more than 75cahiersfrom the ’30s from Madeleine Vionnet’s goddaughter Madeleine Chapsal.All these quite disparate elements came together in a collection where geometry met with a touch of the romantic. Vionnet’s couture codes—the plissé techniques, the bias cuts, the fluid, lissome silhouettes, the masterful drapings—were given a modern, sleek translation. Lines were elongated and vertical; ruching enhanced the sense of movement. The color palette—caviar gray, red currant, aubergine, anise, aloe, marshmallow pink, orchid—read like a list for a run of errands at a chic farmers’ market. A masculine edge gave a sharp twist to an otherwise languid attitude; tuxedo jackets had a gentle oval shape or were decorated with sets of fan-shaped pleats at the back. Silk pajama–inspired tunics worn with fluid palazzo pants could be twisted, folded, and tied in multiple ways with long silk strings attached at the waist. These last pieces brought a light, breezy spirit to a collection in which interesting ideas were at times overwhelmed by a whirlwind of references and themes.
4 January 2016
“Adventuress” is a deliciously double-edged title that was used in 19th- and early-20th-century England to describe invariably hot women who were outside the bounds of “society” and apparently set on their insertion into it. From the niggles, titters, and whispers thatGoga Ashkenazi—the commodities-pumped proprietor of Vionnet—sometimes attracts, one suspects that a century ago she would have been labeled an “adventuress.” Today, though, it seems like what it is: snobbery, pure and simple.Ashkenazi’s project atVionnetis sincere if sometimes touched by naivety. Today, fueled by the insertion ofHussein Chalayaninto her team, she presented a collection that convincingly tipped its hat to Madame Vionnet herself—check Pinterest, y’all—plus incorporated Vionnet’s own classical source code. Beneath the breathy wind of mood-board romanticism—spanning from Peter Doig’s canoe paintings to Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”—this collection was at its essence a group of bias-cut shades-of-nude column dresses with flanks of plissé and sometimes iffy paneling, jazzed up with odd handmaiden flying buttresses, weighed down by sewn-in stones.There were unfortunate diversions: A sheer paneled black dress featured a crisscross of relief cutely taken from an upskirt photograph of the Eiffel Tower, but it was still a too-sheer black dress. But the sublimations of Doric relief and go-to nymph adornment onto half-caped trouser suits with sneaker-meets-gladiator sandals represented the whisper of a Platonically touched ideal spanning then and now. Titter ye not: Vionnet is okay.
30 September 2015
Spring has sprung at Vionnet: The Resort collection was presented in a showroom that had been transformed into a garden replete with ivy, lilies, and various other types of flowers. The spring-like mood trickled down to the lineup, infused with delicate colors and references galore to nature in bloom. "I wanted to bring about a new freshness and give our heritage a lighter spin," said Vionnet's owner and head designer, Goga Ashkenazi, twirling around with ebullient energy to make her point. The colors she used boasted ineffable names such as thorn apple green, bluebell blue, moonflower pink, angel's trumpet yellow, catchfly pink, and datura nude. The nature theme was translated into geometric, slightly constructivist shapes softened by the use of liquid plissés and fluid fabrics.A picture from the Vionnet archives of a sumptuous evening dress embroidered with tulips was the reference for watercolor prints in which the motif was digitally exploded, as in a glove-soft bonded-leather raincoat. It was also used for intarsia appliqués on sleek jackets and tops. The silhouette was elongated, such as a column skirt topped with a short leather cape in pale blue or a narrow aqua macramé midi skirt paired with a sporty-chic sweatshirt in silk mesh. The house signature plissé soleil punctuated the collection. Printed circle skirts were worn with bomber jackets; asymmetric peplum leather "belts" enhancing the waistline ingeniously morphed into tops. Sporty daywear looks and masculine tuxedos in pastel hues were counterbalanced by the glamour of languid evening dresses. Draped in cascading liquid silk jersey, they were clearly aimed straight at the red carpet.
4 June 2015
To research this Vionnet collection, Goga Ashkenazi and her five-person design team flew low by chopper over an erupting Icelandic volcano. She based the prodding golden tusks of the show's earrings and other hardware on her latest piercing. "It's on my nipple," she added (after prompting). That'scommitment. Ashkenazi is an energy gazillionaire whose Vionnet project is fueled by her fever for fashion: Rather than the professional aesthetics of Parsons or Saint Martins, the frame of reference is personal, rooted in the extravagance of opportunity and disintegration of post-glasnost Kazakhstan and Russia. We're not in Kansas anymore—as evidenced, perhaps, by the odd de trop crotch-window on a tartan closer and an abundance of borderline medical leg-strapping. Fundamentally, though, this collection took a classic theme and ran stolidly with it. Along with the drooping, time-for-the-trash wilted flowers that hung above the runway, the most explicit expressions of her Fall '15 appetite for destruction were lava-splatter jacquard, spore-spotted knit furs, and cracked-mud-effect painted leather separates. "It's the beauty of rotting processes and decay," Ashkenazi said.Sprinkled in were many mysterious-heroine cowls-cum-capes (some in a less-mysterious golden netting), backless facade dresses, and a challenging section of pants with built-in shoes—how do you get them on? The silkily quivering, aglow blue dress at the end was inspired by a Greenlandic iceberg, and the trolley-fied Mosaic handbag was inspired by the fact that Ashkenazi often finds herself lugging handbags through airports. Vionnet is a reflection of its owner; therefore, it is highly individual. And why not?
4 March 2015
How much "inspiration" can fit into a collection? And what exactly does it mean? Sometimes one wonders in amazement—or disbelief—at the mysterious process that many designers rely on to give conceptual depth to their work, and through which a conglomeration of ideas and images morphs into the tangible reality of an actual shirt, skirt, or pair of pants.Goga Ashkenazi had inspiration in abundance for her Vionnet Pre-Fall collection. A cornucopia of references spilled out as she gave a passionate explanation of the clothing. Standing tall in front of a detailed mood board, she elucidated the following themes: contradicting realities, fake reality, still movement, light in the dark, wise/grown-up child, limited freedom, silent noise, naked but dressed. It was interesting, if a bit overwhelming. All this intense thinking was condensed into a believable collection by her capable team, which the indefatigable Ashkenazi brought on a trip to Iceland, where it was transfixed by the wondrous optical phenomenon of the aurora borealis and otherworldly landscapes. Hence the shades of almost fluorescent greens and purples on corrugated, fractured yet tactile surfaces in the collection. Starry patterns, embroidered or woven in wool and silk jacquards, were evocative and whimsical yet geometric; lines were pure and softly architectural; the ritual homage to the house-signature fluid draping and pleating was handled lightly. The circle and the rectangle were the starting points for shapes and volumes. And, as if the density of stimuli weren't enough, Ashkenazi's 6-year-old son was put to work: Already a talented miniature artist, he interpreted the Vionnet logo with a spontaneous drawing that was translated into embroideries for short chiffon tunics and elongated evening dresses.
21 January 2015
According to the press notes at the show, the new Vionnet collection was inspired by curves and by dancing. That's the thing about semiotics, though: To each her own! An alternative reading of Goga Ashkenazi's latest outing for the label was vestal virgins circa 2500 A.D. attending a postapocalyptic prom. That seemed as coherent a logic as any for this rather daffy group of clothes, what with the gartered bodysuits and sheer, floor-sweeping overskirts, plissé gowns worn with backpacks, and feral leathers and capes.The plissé and the Grecian draping were a nod to Madeleine Vionnet, of course, and she would have had no trouble identifying her handwriting in a simple column dress of draped nude and ivory silk, or in the bone white draped frock with jewelry embellishment modeled at the close of the show by Saskia de Brauw. She might even have nodded in recognition at a micro-mini plissé dress—an ace look for a would-be modern Artemis. (Ashkenazi herself seemed to be vibrating on that wavelength: The song that played over the finaldéfiléwas Björk's classic "Hunter.") There were other nice pieces scattered throughout—the fabrics here were choice, and it was hard not to like most of them—but the button-down-plus-bubble-skirt and bodysuit-plus-anything propositions were a seriously hard sell. Ashkenazi appears to want to update the Vionnet formula, make it seem aggressively modern; the trouble with that is, Madeleine Vionnet's ideas are timeless and look modern still. Witness the appeal of the simplest, most signature Vionnet looks here. They point the way forward—all the way to the year 2500.
24 September 2014
If Hussein Chalayan has one thing to prove to the world at this point in a career that has helped define fashion's outer limits, it's that he can do glamour. For his new Demi-Couture collection for Vionnet, the models had starlet hair, swept to one side. And they were wearing red-carpet dresses from start to finish. It looked like something new for Chalayan, yet at its heart was his same old fascination with the attraction of opposites.Start with stillness and movement. One dress was a lacy white number with eruptions of red pleating. There were other dresses in which the pleats were exaggerated with fountains of fringing. A simple strapless bias-cut silk sheath toted a swatch of fabric like a wrung-out towel. That was the kind of strangely sensual flourish that distinguishes Chalayan's own collections.Chalayan is a fiercely technical designer. Here, for instance, there were a handful of gowns with a three-dimensional spine curving down the leg or over the shoulder. It was so weird that it shouldn't have worked. But it did, because everything was in the same fabric. The bias swags of contrasting fabrics were less successful. But at least Chalayan never rests. And, with the best will in the world, you could imagine Madeleine Vionnet recognizing herself in the work he is doing.
8 July 2014
Goga Ashkenazi and her Vionnet team have made some corrections since February, replacing the heavy fabrics and challenging layers of the label's recent show with a Resort collection that was lighter in many ways. Dragonfly wings were the starting point. Their iridescence suggested the multicolored jacquard used for a popover top and matching A-line skirt, and their intricate patterns provided the tracery print found on a weightless handkerchief-hem dress. An embroidery of the same motif appeared on the inside of a technical fabric dress, but it was somewhat ponderous, where the other frock was airy. The most striking interpretation of the wing idea came on a long halter dress on which the pattern was magnified into bold color-blocks of silver, nude, white, and black. Its graphic look complemented other dresses featuring art deco stripes, a modern nod at Madeleine Vionnet's legacy. Sneaker-sandal hybrids gave the collection an of-the-moment spin.
11 June 2014
Goga Ashkenazi's big ambitions were writ large all over the Espace Ephémère Tuileries. Tulips on the runway and on every seat, paper origami hanging from the rafters, a video installation on the walls, a smoke machine—all of it competing for attention with the clothes. Ashkenazi's Vionnet is still in its nascent stage; it's very much a work in progress. After experimenting with cotton poplin shirts wrapped in tulle plissé last season, she and her team ventured further afield from Vionnet's fluid signatures for Fall, usingvalenkifelt, a material used for traditional boots in Russia, for dresses, coats, and backless bustier tops. Even from a couple of yards away, the itch factor was palpable. Beyond the felt, there were an inordinate number of knit onesies.There are no rules for brand revivals anymore. Honor the archives or don't—it doesn't matter as long as the clothes are desirable. You just couldn't say that about enough of the pieces here. It didn't help that a difficult shade of lime green was the show's dominant color. The looks that did conjure desire were the ones closest to Madeleine Vionnet's own work. A pair of evening dresses in color-blocked jersey and lightweight suede, sashed around the waist, looked graphic and strong. They pointed a way forward for this label.
25 February 2014
There are two ways to approach the task Hussein Chalayan accepted when he signed on to produce a demi-couture collection for Goga Ashkenazi's Vionnet. Observe and reinterpret the house's heritage for today or ignore it. It won't come as much of a surprise to those who've followed Chalayan's boundary-pushing career that he said he had opted for the latter path. "There are so many brands that are old, that are being revived," he explained beforehand. "It shouldn't be about revisiting the archives." Fair enough. To move the fashion dial forward, you have to look forward.Chalayan chose industrial design as a starting point. Spiral staircases, furniture, electric wires—it was all laid out on a mood board at a preview. In the past, his conceptual approach extended his reach. Here, the "melting shelves" idea he used to create sculptural shapes fell a bit flat. Meanwhile, dresses in a print and embroidery motif derived from patternmakers' toiles—"a comment on dressmaking itself," he called it—looked stiff.Some ideas adapted better to clothing design. The spiral staircases morphed into five-layer techno organza bias-cut dresses with single seams and laser-cut concentric circles in varying degrees of sheerness. Technically accomplished and lovely, they made a connection between Vionnet past and Vionnet future: The bias cut is credited to Madeleine Vionnet. Plissé was another hallmark of the house. Chalayan modernized it by printing only one side of the pleats and combining different kinds—sunray, straight, irregular—into halter dresses suspended from harness collars embellished with "electrified" beads. Unlike some other parts of the collection, the vibe here was right.
20 January 2014
Vionnet's Goga Ashkenazi had big news last week: Hussein Chalayan is designing a demi-couture collection for the house that will have its debut in Paris later this month. The chance to see Chalayan apply his avant-garde sensibility to Madeleine Vionnet's legacy will make the label's couture week show a must-see. He'll have the good fortune of being able to focus primarily on eveningwear, which is where Vionnet made her mark. Ashkenazi and her design team, in contrast, have had to build a full ready-to-wear collection around the codes of bias-cut dresses.That's not necessarily an easy task, but it's one that Ashkenazi has embraced with gusto. If her experiments for Pre-Fall didn't always hit the mark—the Amazon pants, with their extra squares of fabric at the hips, were probably a shade too exuberant—there were others that connected. She took plissé, a Vionnet signature, as a starting point, and she pleated just about everything. A glossy bottle-green leather dress pleated two ways and a black leather coat with pleats that she likened to origami were among the collection's best pieces. Elsewhere, a charcoal coat and poncho embellished with a royal blue cave-art design looked subtle and smart. Occasion dresses, for the most part, were de-emphasized here. A missed opportunity, perhaps. We don't necessarily need a logo sweatshirt or a fisherman's sweater from Vionnet. But a draped black jersey gown with a pleated pink back? That could have legs on the red carpet.
5 January 2014
Goga Ashkenazi is intent on making her rehab of Vionnet stick. She acquired this French heritage brand last year, and anybody who's spent time with her knows she's fabulously determined. Doubtless she'll eventually figure it out, but for every step forward today, she took another step back. On the one hand, Ashkenazi had managed to secure big-name models like Carolyn Murphy and Lily Donaldson; on the other, her catwalk was scattered with high walls that ended up obscuring the audience's view. There were moments when you could hear the photographers hooting in frustration.More pertinently, let's get to the clothes. Ashkenazi had a clever idea in her men's cotton poplin shirts and shirtdresses, which she wrapped in cages of tulle plissé to give them a Vionnet spin. They looked interesting—crisp without being too businesslike. But what to make of the plissé bodysuits, the practical implications of which are quite limited? Or the men's white jersey T-shirts that she layered underneath draped tulle evening gowns? You could ascribe those to a misguided attempt at raising the label's cool factor. Ashkenazi was better off when she stayed closer to the Vionnet DNA. A pair of elegant asymmetrical evening gowns with draped backs that revealed their cotton jersey linings got at the ease she is aiming to convey here.
1 October 2013
Goga Ashkenazi has been at the helm of Vionnet since the middle of last year. She had no formal design training before she presented her first ready-to-wear collection for Spring 2013. But lack of experience has done nothing to dampen her ambition.Maybe she's feeling emboldened by the red-carpet coup she landed at Cannes; Carey Mulligan wore the black and white finale number from the Fall Vionnet collection to theInside Llewyn Davispremiere. Today, Ashkenazi presented what she's calling a new demi-couture collection for the label. "We figured out how to make the dresses more affordable but use the same couture techniques," she said. Through eliminating "the endless fittings" and selling by size with a single fitting at the end, Goga and co. have shaved one of the zeros off the end of current couture prices; the pieces will go from $10,000 to $30,000, rather than the hundreds of thousands of dollars that true made-to-measure creations can sell for at other houses.That's good news for customers, but there was a wrinkle with the new launch. A shipping snafu forced the team to remake ten of the eleven dresses in the collection in forty-eight hours. (The presentation was originally scheduled for yesterday.) Four other designs couldn't be produced in the short time period because they weren't able to source the fabrics. The fact that Ashkenazi made it happen at all is further testament to her ambition, and deep pockets.With the exception of a lace bodysuit embellished with dripped resin that looked remarkably like encrustations of tiny seed beads, these were event dresses. From understated to less so: a red plissé gown with black tube beads embroidered at the waist and in piles at the shoulders, a green hourglass column with a built-in cape and feathers stitched into the shape of a dragon on the bodice, and a tent dress with sheer gazar insets and matte sequin embroideries meant to mimic the spines on a dragon's back. A bit much, that one. The best of the bunch came in nude silk and a draped emerald green laminated matte satin with a papery hand. Its skirt was in dégradé plissé, but it nonetheless caught some of the cool minimalism of Mulligan's Cannes number.
2 July 2013
Goga Ashkenazi's runway shows for Vionnet have, to date, been relatively sober, straightforward affairs. Her dresses flutter à la Vionnet, but the pressures of the house's illustrious heritage have kept them more or less in line. For Resort, she pledged to "inject some modernity." This meant, variously, bright color (influenced, Ashkenazi said, by Latin America), new fabrics, and clever, multipurpose accessories like the knit collars that punched up many of the looks.Overall, the collection felt younger, with a more distinct point of view. Or maybe that should be more distinctpointsof view. There were some literal hat tips to heritage, like the equine print inspired by Vionnet's famous 1929 horse dress, but they rang of box-checking more than anything else. There were looks seemingly designed for editorial consumption—and the front-row, street-style brigade that is now a key demographic for designers—like the series of see-through tulle dresses. Covered with twisted thread appliqués and then rubberized, these were intended to be worn over Ashkenazi's new knit bra-and-panty sets. But the best of the bunch were the more wearable cocktail options that combined the label's legacy with a light, modern touch. The draped, bias-cut jersey dress, which fastens with a hidden leather belt, felt like a meeting of Vionnet minds, past and present. So did new experiments with fabric. These included the introduction of stretch—which Ashkenazi noted was actually first an innovation of Madeleine Vionnet—and a lacquered cady, which gave the look of leather but the drape of silk.
23 June 2013
Goga Ashkenazi has made headway at Vionnet since her debut effort last season. She threw a well-attended party in Milan last month to celebrate her acquisition of a cache of Thayaht illustrations of Madeleine Vionnet designs. More importantly, the collection she presented today was more runway worthy than what she did back in September. The thunder-and-lightning opening was corny and the Ancient Greece set, complete with metal columns, overdone, but those are beginner's mistakes, easily corrected next season. The clothes demonstrated a keen attention to our fashion times. Pants were cut high on the waist, roomy through the thighs, and above the ankle, in keeping with current trends, and she put the emphasis on strong shoulders. Hers are squared, not rounded like most of the others we've seen. Vionnet was famous as a dressmaker first and foremost, and there were some pretty numbers here that demonstrated a familiarity with the house's codes, most notably a long, softly draped black dress with a keyhole bodice and a high slit up one side.Ashkenazi's slipup came with fur. It's just hard to get astrakhan, fox, and other skins to do the kind of draping that silk does. For the time being, it might make sense for her to narrow her scope and pay close attention to the little things. One model carried a handbag all the way around the runway with its paper stuffing about to spill out.
5 March 2013
Goga Ashkenazi reports that she's bought a stash of original Madeleine Vionnet sketches and is trying to get her hands on as many of her dresses as museums and collectors are willing to let go. Nonetheless, the new Vionnet is still a work in progress. She and her creative team are well-versed by now in the principles of the groundbreaking designer—the geometric cuts and construction, the simplicity of drape, an Art Deco touch here and there. The question is: Can they build that into a label with relevance for the twenty-first century? And furthermore, can they compete in a world of megabrands like Chanel? Coco, of course, was a contemporary of Madeleine's, but that company has had the benefit of Karl Lagerfeld at its helm for three decades. There's no doubt that Ashkenazi dreams big—she's looking at real estate for a Paris store and headquarters, followed by a shop in New York. The pieces here that hewed closest to Vionnet's legacy looked the strongest—the famous square dress in color-blocked jersey and others like it; a draped, asymmetrical gown in ivory jersey edged in black grosgrain that looked like two pieces, not one.A shorts suit in lapis blue, burgundy, and gold evoked the color palette of Rudy Paglialunga, one of Vionnet's many short-lived designers. Much of the rest failed to distinguish itself enough to linger in the memory.
20 January 2013
There's been another designer change at Vionnet. The Croce sisters, who took over for Rudy Paglialunga, are out after just one runway season. Today's collection was designed under the new creative director Goga Ashkenazi, who is also the company's new owner. And don't forget Sophia Kokosalaki and Marc Audibet, who both had their shot at turning the label into something with its previous owners. Got all that?It's a long way of saying that reviving a heritage label, no matter how illustrious the name, is hard. Really hard. And Vionnet's name was once illustrious; the inventor of the bias cut, she helped free women from the cage of corsetry. Now? You can't blame customers if they've lost interest. Inconsistency can sink a brand; even a 100-year-old name can lose its currency.Ashkenazi demonstrated today that she has a general sense of Madeleine Vionnet's house codes—the asymmetric necklines, the draped square cuts—and she gave the sheer chiffons and georgettes a modern spin, often pairing them with pants underneath. But the collection lacked finesse, and it'll need it to compete in the fashion world of 2012.
27 September 2012
It's a looser, lighter, dare one say Springier pre-Spring at Vionnet. "We're moving toward more femininity, a more sensual collection," explained sister designers Barbara and Lucia Croce, who are rounding the bend of their third collection for the label. The duo have made pragmatism their beat at the brand, changing course from the more evening-leaning one charted by former designer Rodolfo Paglialunga, but drape is at the heart of Vionnet and they don't reserve it for after dark. Even their tailored pieces sway.The designers emphasize motion and design in 360 degrees. They're great fans of asymmetry, and what looks one way from the front will often look different from the side or the back: a long silk cotton cloque skirt that plunges and rises or a gossamer-looking gown that surprises at the back with a giant bow. That one side of a print skirt is plisséd is no guarantee that the other will be.If the Croces are still honing their look at the label, there's also plenty to recommend. The oversized rose floral they debuted had a garden sweetness, especially when you got close and saw that it was patched and stitched, not printed. That emphasis on texture runs throughout, as in the cocktail dress made of cascading layers of sherbet-colored sheers or the finale evening looks, where that opening rose came rendered in sequins.Yes, evening, too. "As women, it's important for us to propose a complete wardrobe," the designers said. Including, incidentally, jewelry. Their asymmetrical gold-tone bangles were a quiet standout.
25 June 2012
Barbara and Lucia Croce have replaced Rodolfo Paglialunga at Vionnet. Their style is more minimal than that of their predecessor—you won't be seeing the flowers, stars, and butterflies Rudy did for Spring while the twin sisters are at the label. Another thing that was new for the house was the focus on daywear, especially pants. Trousers aren't necessarily a part of the Madeleine Vionnet oeuvre, but they're pretty essential to modern women's lives, so the young duo was savvy to include them in their presentation. To keep them on brand, they showed them with tunics cut on the square in the classic Vionnet style.Paglialunga's path to success had been to concentrate on evening, especially looks for the red carpet, where he had started to gain some traction with the celebrity set. The Croce sisters have aimed their sights at professional women who have just as much need for a hammered satin jacket and georgette palazzo pants, or a cool fur coat made from fox and beaver, as they do for an evening gown. That seems like a good business plan: There are more of us than them.
1 March 2012
Madeleine Vionnet introduced the bias-cut dress to the world, and in the process helped liberate women from corsets. So it makes sense to see a pair of forward-looking young sisters at the helm of the revived house. Since being picked to replace Rodolfo Paglialunga, Barbara and Lucia Croce have been studying Vionnet's groundbreaking oeuvre, and for their debut at the label, selected a few of her signatures to reinvent.The rectangle dress—a simple swatch of crepe draped and stitched to a smaller back panel—has a modern allure that belies its decades-old origins. Same goes for Vionnet's trademark Grecian gathering and draping, which looked particularly fresh here on an evening top with an asymmetric train that trailed behind one leg of a pair of tapering pants.Accessories and jewelry are also in these designers' purview. The twins put their sensible, chic stamp on shoes with substantial heels that are low enough to do some serious stomping around in. Smart.
22 January 2012
The thirties seemed like the one decade we hadn't seen so far for Spring. That changed today with Rodolfo Paglialunga's bright collection for Vionnet. "Everything in life is so hard now, I wanted a return to beauty and elegance," he explained. Those years, of course, were the house founder Madeleine Vionnet's heyday. Paglialunga also just scored a big coup when Madonna wore one of his thirties-inflected bias-cut gowns to the Venice Film Festival. Does he need another reason to reimagine the era?The influence came across most obviously in the evening dresses: lovely draped columns with trains in painterly floral prints, or a white goddess gown embroidered with bumblebees. The daywear had a sportier spin. Paglialunga has used mountain climber's ropes as accents on necklines and waistbands in the past. Here he looked to field sports, turning baseball jerseys into silk shift dresses with contrast sleeves. Put together with the butterflies, flowers, and stars embellishing everything, it could feel like there was just too much going on. Paglialunga had more success when he kept things simpler: a navy dress whose only sports reference was the elasticized neckline from which it was draped; a cocktail number that was essentially just two light blue squares of fabric sewn together. Madeleine would've approved.
29 September 2011
Zoe Saldana looked fab in a dress from Rodolfo Paglialunga's Fall Vionnet show at the Cannes Film Festival, and there are a few more pieces in his Resort lineup with her name on them. We're thinking of the royal blue number with the long slit sleeves, or the midnight gown with a train that pooled around the model's feet. Both are bias-cut, draped from what is essentially a big square of silk, and as long and languid as can be. Paglialunga is an expert at evening. What he set out to do with this collection was prove that his clothes charm just as effectively before dark. We'd say he succeeded, and on at least three counts: knits, pants, and outerwear.First, the array of hardy yet sweet knits. Our favorite was cropped, ribbed, and embellished with a colorfully beaded elephant across the chest. The designer's own fave, he told us, was essentially two Ts sewn together back to front, the cool graphicism of it accentuated by its yellow, black, and white color blocking. Paglialunga also did a simple silk tee with a scarf printed on its front, snazzed up by the paillette-strewn boxer shorts with which it was worn. As for the pants, there was only one pair, but they looked sharp: long, lean, flaring below the knee, and, best of all, red. Paglialunga's statement coat, color-blocked in that same shade of red and navy, came with three-quarter-length kimono sleeves, the better to show off stacks of bangles on both wrists.
13 June 2011
When he arrived at Vionnet, Rodolfo Paglialunga put a modern spin on the house codes established by Madeleine Vionnet nearly a century ago. In so doing, he made the revived label a favorite with the Hollywood crowd. Now, reputation established, he's started to inject quite a bit more of himself into the mix in the form of print, texture, and color. The result was the loosest collection he's done here yet.Paglialunga found his starting point online, turning the image of a black and white knot he discovered there into a swirling graphic pattern that could almost have been a floral. He used the print for a fluid long-sleeve dress with a nipped waist and a below-the-knee skirt, as well as a quilted wrap coat with sculptural shoulders. Stripey stretch belts added a sporty pop to most of the looks. The knot also informed dresses knitted from ribbons of silk, organza, wool, and suede, all with a swingy volume. It was interesting to see some overlap between his knit grosgrain dresses and the velvet ones at Balenciaga yesterday.As for the color, well, it was positively florid, but we mean that in the nicest possible way. The blue of a lace dress was electric and a wool coat patched randomly with fox fur came in lipstick red. Madame Vionnet was no maximalist, but being an innovator, she might've appreciated this collection's freewheeling vibe.
3 March 2011
Wild West? Mae West? Rodolfo Paglialunga stitchedVionnet's pre-fall collection together from such a bizarrely contradictory patchwork of references that it was a miracle the thing held together as well as it did. There was Navajo in the extravagant fringing and the jewelry, Old Hollywood glamour in a backless bronze lamé gown and slinky sequins, and a Baroque aspect to the feather print lifted from a fragment of foulard by the legendary Italian fabric house Ratti. And weaving through the whole farrago were some of the signatures that Paglialunga has extracted from the long history of the house of Vionnet: the square-cut shapes, the asymmetry, the pleating. Actually, it wasn't so much that the designer stitched together his various fascinations; it was more like he drawstrung and belted them to create shape and movement. He claimed he was newly focused on daywear—hence the quilted bomber that was one of his favorite pieces. But the essence of Vionnet under Paglialunga remains an eccentric dressiness.
23 January 2011
Rodolfo Paglialunga isn't an L.B.D. kind of guy. Little by little, he's been turning Vionnet into a reliable source for special dresses, the kind that make fans among the young Hollywood crowd. For Spring, that something special comes in the form of all sorts of hardware, including resin chain belts through which the top and bottom of his halter dresses have been woven together.The cuffs and collar of a short silk shirtdress were studded in gold mesh; other dresses came suspended from gold necklaces or, more peculiarly but no less charmingly, colorful climbing rope. The real feat was how light everything felt. It helped that Paglialunga, inspired by Art Deco, stuck to a graphic, mostly black and white palette; he also kept the silhouette, reminiscent of flapper dresses, simple and unstructured.The other appealing aspect of this presentation: The designer moved his focus beyond the red carpet to real-life occasions. One note, though: With those integral belts and necklace necklines, these dresses will be next to impossible to have dry-cleaned. Careful with the red wine.
30 September 2010
In her time, Madeleine Vionnet was such an arch-modernist that her innovations haunt fashion to this very day, which means Rodolfo Paglialunga faces a peculiar challenge in making Vionnet more contemporary. For Resort, he cleverly took a sporty route, showing tank dresses, T-shirt dresses, and a parka shape with a swallowtail that spoke more of Now than Then. With a form as simple as two circles sewn together and elasticized at the waist, Paglialunga created a silhouette that had the ease of a caftan or a kimono, especially in washed linen as soft as an old sheet. There was, in fact, something very Japanese about that geometry, though it also referenced Vionnet's own manipulation of the square in her work. An ingenious dress whose sleeves folded back for a capelike effect invited movement, perhaps even some kind of interpretive dance. It wasn't hard to imagine Paglialunga's other frocks having just such a result on actress fans like Carey Mulligan, Rachel McAdams, and Marion Cotillard, especially as shown in a shift of dégradé sequins. Too bad Paglialunga's color scheme of browns, beiges, and blue-gray was so dour and un-partylike. The accompanying costume jewelry of ropes and chains, which looked like something found on the beach, was actually much more glamorous than it sounds.
22 June 2010
After a detour into daywear for his pre-collection, Rodolfo Paglialunga focused most of his attention for Fall on evening. It's a category he's had some success with in the short time he's been at Vionnet, dressing Carey Mulligan for her BAFTA Awards win less than two weeks ago, as well as other young starlets on the premiere circuit. From the pair of hand-painted lace dresses worn over colorful striped slips to a draped "three pink" silk cocktail number, the collection he showed at Jean Cocteau's Palais-Royal apartment today had a lot of red-carpet potential. But there were less glam, more intimate pleasures to be had as well, chief among them a cleverly constructed date dress made from a single piece of ruched velvet that snapped up the back for easy-on and even easier-off access. Equally effortless was a square of ivory silk embroidered horizontally with black ribbons. It takes a deft draper to pull off something so deceptively simple.Rounding out the evening looks were luxe belted gilets with built-in capes trimmed in fox and other coats in a bold painterly check with a lot of drama at the shoulders. Paglialunga also had a lacquered cable sweater with a novel shape. His day silhouettes were in keeping with the drift toward more structured shapes. This season, though, it was the event clothes that stood out—and that are starting to give the latest incarnation of this storied label an identity.
4 March 2010
Even those who are paid to track the recent spate of designer comings and goings and brand relaunches might have to think twice before naming the designer currently at Vionnet—and the current status of the house. The man in question is Rodolpho Paglialunga, an unknown with long experience at Prada, and the label is now owned by the Italian entrepreneur Matteo Marzotto. That puts it a few steps removed from its Parisienne founder, Madeleine Vionnet, the genius inventor of the bias cut, to whom an amazing exhibition has just been devoted at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.To judge from the pre-fall collection—the current team's third outing, after Resort and Spring—the ambition to clean the slate and write a new, distinct identity for Vionnet is still some distance from being realized. Perhaps understandably, there seems to be some carryover from Paglialunga's last place of work and a tendency toward overly complicated shapes that tie and wrap—all shown with gray flannel thigh-length spats meant to be worn inside knee-high boots. That's a lot of conceptualism for one piece of footwear. More attractive and certainly easier to wear was the sportier side of the offering: simple city separates featuring hand-drawn fifties and sixties grid patterns.
25 January 2010
Rodolpho Paglialunga made his Vionnet debut at Resort with a collection that didn't quite capture the magical lightness of the legendary couturier's creations. In between, he must've studied the archives, because this was a much more focused production, one that owed a debt to Madame V.'s ideas about draping but looked completely modern and effortless."I love to create clothes with fabric, no sketches," Paglialunga explained. Essentially, he took squares and rectangles of charmeuse and chiffon and wrapped them around the body, gathering them at the shoulder and around the waist with a jeweled belt and leaving the extra material to curl around the neck or float down the torso. The resulting silk dresses came in gorgeous color-blocks (white, black, and lilac; yellow, purple, and fuchsia) or in a vibrant floral scarf print, sometimes densely beaded, as well as in chiffons embroidered in matte and shiny sequins. Shirts created in the same manner were paired with slouchy knee-length shorts or slinky pants.The collection was presented on mannequins, but here's hoping that Paglialunga and Vionnet's owner Matteo Marzotto decide on a runway next season. These are the kind of clothes you want to see in motion.
1 October 2009
It's round three for Vionnet. Sophia Kokosalaki and Marc Audibet had tried their hands at the storied French house before investor Matteo Marzotto, formerly of Valentino, bought the company earlier this year and installed a veteran of Miuccia Prada's design studio, Rodolfo Paglialunga, as the label's new creative director. Paglialunga's first collection for pre-spring works the tropes Vionnet was known for—Grecian draping, bias cut, exposed shoulders—without being a strict homage. That's thanks in part to the accessories: understated pumps and T-straps, streamlined clutches and chain bags, and especially the geometric gold cuffs. Versatility was a key Vionnet innovation, so some of the frocks can be worn back to front, while the capelike sleeves of a shirtdress can be tied behind the back to create a different, more casual silhouette. The collection was at its most successful when Paglialunga kept things simple: One timeless bit of unfussy elegance—a sleeveless black cocktail number that billowed down the back—would be a welcome addition to any woman's closet, not least of all because of its recession-cognizant $800 price tag.
20 July 2009
As a small but intense addendum to the season, what's going on at Vionnet deserves recognition. The name has been revived in a very rarefied, technically accomplished way by Sophia Kokosalaki, who was hired by the French owners of the dormant brand last season, in arrangement with Barneys New York, who are, for the moment, the sole stockists. "It has to be French, formal, and pure," Kokosalaki said. "I avoid festoonery and anything to do with cool Britannia, which I can do in my own line." Following in the footsteps of Madeleine Vionnet, who laid down the fundamentals of twentieth-century dressmaking, is a daunting task, but Kokosalaki has taken it on in a way that shines a subtle sidelight on fashion's pent-up desire for simple-seeming but ultrarefined minimalism.Sophia herself likes trenchcoats and dresses, and that's what she showed in her low-key, appointment-only presentation. It gave a close-up of some exceptional things. There was a pliant brown shearling coat with a small waist and a soft, undulating bounce in the skirt, one of the best of its kind seen all season. The draped, twisted, and knotted evening dresses, especially the one in silver silk lamé, gave a quietly impactful alternative for women who prefer to pass under the radar of red carpet branding. Integral here is the manipulation of superluxe fabrics to trick the eye: patinated silk that looks like leather, textured cloque that could be astrakhan, and minute dustings of pearl Lesage embroidery (taken from an original Vionnet sample) that, as Kokosalaki puts it, "make it look as if you've been snowed on."The fact that the designer has taken lessons from the authority on Vionnet's complex cutting techniques is part of the magic, though she's intelligent enough to see that it isn't about being slavishly referential. In this collection, Kokosalaki worked on Vionnet's "barrel" shape rather than bias cutting. It produced, for example, a square-cut coat with a collar that can fold into place, or be left loose to create a standout shoulder line, according to whim or weather. The price tags are some of the highest in ready-to-wear, but so far the cost is proving no deterrent. Within three weeks, the spring delivery of Vionnet's little-publicized first collection had sold out, an indication that Kokosalaki's woman-flattering approach is very much on the right track.
3 March 2007