Azzaro (Q3807)
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| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Azzaro |
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Statements
2003
creative director
Olivier Theyskens has built an enviable reputation on romance. Edwardian-inflected hook-and-eye closures, frissons of lace, graceful gowns, and the perfect line have been leitmotifs of his work since the late ’90s, when he started his eponymous label in Paris. What have perhaps not been so closely associated with his sophisticated vision of femininity are sequins. But that’s changed since he took the top creative job at Azzaro two years ago, where he has been making couture—and embracing all things shiny.“I love the possibility to play with things I was more shy with in the past: paillettes, crystals, sequins,” he said, in a preview at the house’s head office in the eighth arrondissement. “That’s a typical Azzaro thing, and I am discovering how beautiful it can be.” Part of that is down to having established a good working relationship with the atelier team. “When you understand the culture, what [the atelier] knows how to do, you can be confident when you do a design, it will be done properly.” And, having carefully absorbed the meticulously preserved archive of press cuttings depicting an impressive roster of ’70s It-girl fans (Jane Birkin, Brigitte Bardot, Romy Schneider, Dalida), Theyskens has mastered making ornamentation feel easy. “It’s imprinted in me, this notion: It’s a couture house, but it’s not anhautecouture house,” he explained. “It doesn’t have the rules from haute couture. Most of the dresses are very simple, it’s just about the body shape.”Fluidity was the watchword for the season, and it permeated the metallic-flecked knitted tunic-and-trouser combinations and louche, sheeny suits in moody shades of gray, caramel, and Russian blue. Most memorable were the floor-length evening dresses, cut to expose the back, their skirts left long and dramatic, some with deep Vs at the neck and barely-there straps trimmed with crystals. They were reminiscent of the kinds of gowns Charlize Theron, Cate Blanchett, and Halle Berry wore on the red carpet in the early 2000s, and fit with the current thirst for Y2K without compromising on refinement. “It has a glamour, an ease, but there is not a lot of construction,” Theyskens said.Despite these COVID-stricken months of scaled back red-carpet events, he’s found particular success with menswear, which is appealing to an increasingly flamboyant client.
Highlights included a spangled take on a pinstriped suit, the stripes picked out in silver sequins; and a black paillette-strewn two-piece suit paired with a liquid vinyl roll-neck. Some of the most spectacular pieces in the showroom, though, won’t make the edit for the film which served to showcase the spring 2022 collection in lieu of a show. “People are looking for the new language. But I want to keep working also on the retro-vintage, which I love,” Theyskens said. Clients are starting to seek out made-to-measure services in one-to-one appointments, and requesting remakes of pieces from the archive. He is considering remaking the famous chainmail and crochet blouses from the 1970s. But all in good time. “At the moment,” he said. “I put my choice on things that feel a little more timeless.”
24 January 2022
When Olivier Theyskens was first appointed the creative director of Azzaro a year ago he went to visit the house’s deserted atelier above shop on the rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, where the late Loris Azzaro dressed the international It Girls of the 1970s disco era in his signature sensual dresses. Theyskens recalls how powerful the energy was in the space: He immediately began to sit down and sketch his own daring body-con vision for Azzaro with its power shoulders and skirts slashed to the waist—a 180 degree pivot from the prim and poetic romanticism that defined his own designs at the beginning of his career.Theyskens soon discovered that some of the atelier’s mirrored wall panels swung open to reveal Azzaro’s extensive media archives and this season he immersed himself in more of the house’s history when he explored the collection of original Azzaro pieces in Paris’s dedicated fashion museum, the Palais Galliera, including many dresses designed for the legendary singer Dalida. (Loris Azzaro also famously dressed Marisa Berenson, Jane Birkin, and Brigitte Bardot, among others). Looking at these clothes Theyskens was struck by the designer’s sleek vision. “It’s not baroque, it’s not Versailles,” Theyskens explained, “and you don’t need an assistant to dress up. There was always a form of simplicity—effortless, impactful, and minimal.”Taking these precepts as his North Star—and delving further into the Azzaro glory years with a look at the era’s modernist furniture designs and on the fabled Studio 54 interiors created by Scott Bromley—Theyskens presented a collection of men’s and women’s wear that merged his Goth Belgian sensibility with some old school va-va-voom, to intriguing effect.Theyskens clearly feels that after a year in lockdown the Azzaro customer just wants to party: The show opened with a smoking suit dazzled with silver sequins like a disco ball. There are liquid platinum suits for guys, and slithers of dresses and jumpsuits for girls with what he playfully described as, “décolleté, the most glamorous possible—almost to the limit!”Even the knitwear is fashioned to caress the body. Theyskens also researched the exact fine chain that Azzaro used for Tina Turner’s show dresses, and incorporated it into the scintillating embroideries he works on with Indian artisans.
Those craftspeople were also responsible for Theyskens’s impasto take on the triple-linked ring motif that is an iconic Azzaro signature and that he uses on the back or side of jackets and dresses. He also looked at contemporary fabrics that he feels that Azzaro would have been drawn to if he were here to admire them, such as microsequins worked on fine bark-textured pleats.“This is the place where I can play with the sexy allure,” said Theyskens, “there is no limit.”
5 July 2021
For obvious reasons Olivier Theyskens’s nearly year-long tenure at Azzaro hasn’t been marked by the red-carpet-star turns that defined the early years of his own label, or his runs at Rochas and Nina Ricci. The pandemic has shut down award ceremonies and movie tours, just like it has fashion shows. Yet Theyskens remains a star’s designer. Attuned to waist-whittling details and face-flattering ones, he’s an expert of fit and filigree.When Hollywood cranks up the PR machinery again post-vaccine, there will be dresses here to tempt celebrities and their stylists: a long-sleeved white column wreathed with bead and feather embroidery; a black number with built-up shoulders and a bodice picked out in crystals that calls to mind Adrian, the maestro of Old Hollywood glamour, as much as it does Azzaro. Another evening dress transfers Loris Azzaro’s signature strass-embroidered circular cut-outs from the front to the back, a clever move.If the shutdowns have limited the label’s exposure, they’ve also allowed Theyskens more time than he might otherwise have had to dig into the house’s archives and to refine the direction in which he wants to take it. Theyskens’s men’s tailoring suggests he’s as pro-rhinestone and pro-sequin for the guys as he is for the girls. That said, he made a point of talking up simplicity on a Zoom call. “She has to be able to sit down and not break the dress,” he said.Pointing out how Jane Birkin and Romy Schneider wore their Azzaro dresses “over and over,” he indicated he’s as interested in his clients’ candid moments as he is in the spectacular photo opportunities he’s been known to create over the years. That means that for Azzaro’s ready-to-wear, he’s working with stretch fabrics—materials he describes as “new to me”—and crepe. Still, there’s no shortage of sequins.
25 January 2021
An empty studio, just a couple of models taking turns in a dressing room, and an iPhone with a Zoom link. This is not the debut Olivier Theyskens imagined when he signed on at Azzaro to design womenswear and men’s in early February. Back then, this couture week was shaping up to be a beauty, with not only Theyskens’s Azzaro launch to anticipate, but also Demna Gvasalia’s first made-to-measure collection for Balenciaga. But, of course, the coronavirus happened, and designers and fashion brands, like all of us, have had to adapt.During the lockdown, Theyskens visited the empty Azzaro atelier on rue St-Honoré to sketch alone and “get in the mental state to feel the gestures of the founder.” The studio, he says, “is like a museum, full with the integrity of all the archives of the house, which is everything from the ’60s to the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. It’s a place that’s about a moment in fashion that I’ve never really had the opportunity to dig into,” he continues. “For me the house of Azzaro should be dresses made with the least seams possible. It’s something about the ease of movement, but it’s also [about] something intelligent in the construction.”In quarantine, Theyskens created a collection that’s lean and efficient yet sumptuous. Loris Azzaro’s most famous design is an evening dress with three strass-lined circular cutouts on the bodice. The designers who’ve headed up the label since his 2003 death have never failed to reissue it. Theyskens made his version in a silver lamé velvet with rhinestone and sequin embroidery tracing the cutouts. That crystal detailing provides one of the collection’s through lines: A long-sleeve triple black crepe dress is crisscrossed with ribbons of shine, and an exactingly cut brocade coat dress is finished with glimmering buttons. The collection’s other hallmark is its rigorous cuts. It won’t put anyone in mind of Theyskens’s much-loved 2000s work for Rochas or Nina Ricci—there’s not a single gratuitous flourish. But that feels right for our straitened times.Absent a runway or even the chance at a presentation, Theyskens commissioned the Belgian director Lukas Dhont (Girl, 2018) to create a short promotional film starring the Belgian musician Sylvie Kreusch. “I gave them carte blanche,” the designer says. At the end of last week he was still waiting to see the final cut, but he did know for sure that in addition to a selection of his Azzaro dresses, Kreusch models a menswear jacket.
“I was very pleased with the first outings of the tailoring; I want to wear everything from the collection,” he enthuses. That cameo aside, his menswear debut just might happen IRL; it’s scheduled for September, and Paris is promising in-person shows and presentations.
6 July 2020
For the past few seasons, the nimble fingers in the Azzaro studio have quietly tried to uphold the house’s couture tradition, with mixed results. Monday’s outing was a case in point.The show notes spoke of time-honored “flamboyant sensuousness” and “the assertive, epicurean Amazon who draws strength in her uniqueness.” It went on to evoke “fleshy, graphic futurist flora” and “relentless tailoring.”That’s a lot to wrap your mind around. On the runway, there was certainly plenty of flesh and flora, plus Amazonian attitude in spades. Some looks, such as the black deep-V gown with a crystal belt that opened the show, or a long, tailored coat, neatly captured the Azzaro spirit. It also was evident in some key details, like the draping on black or gold minidresses that were otherwise far too brief—the Azzaro woman, as she existed in the designer’s heyday, did not need to stoop to such tactics.Elsewhere, menswear stole some of the limelight. There was sharp tailoring and—especially noteworthy—shiny effects, like iridescent suiting paired with a glinting oxblood trench, or charcoal gray crystals placed in such a way as to evoke the moon’s relief.After the show, Azzaro CEO Gabriel de Linage said that the house has been taking its time before appointing a new artistic director and that an announcement was, finally, imminent. “It’s very close, and it’s an important step for the company,” he said. “All of these collections have been a great way to go back to the archives and move toward the future.” Couture, he added, would remain the backbone of the house, for both men and women.While there is much to be said in praise of slow fashion, if recent history shows us anything, it’s that the future arrives faster than anyone might have imagined. There’s a boundary in space that astronomers call an event horizon, and for Azzaro, that horizon is now or never.
23 January 2020
Now minus a creative director—although one is expected to be named imminently—Azzaro finds itself in limbo once again. It’s in good company: A number of other once-illustrious houses are now desperately seeking a 21st-century identity. But that’s not a club anyone ever deliberately chooses to join.Given this unenviable set of circumstances, you gotta hand it to the studio. It pulled together a coherent show, and a team of six took a bow together—three women and three men. Among them were three who knew and worked with Loris Azzaro. The living memory remains in-house.True to form, the team was in a party mood: “Festive bohemian” was how one spokesperson put it, while the show notes evoked a woman fluent in “the subtle art of unveiling” and “boldly…revealing spark” without a hint of irony. Indeed, there was a lot of near “bare” here, from a handful of tributes to Mr. Azzaro’s defining, 1970s-era three-ring dress to a silver crystal cage dress worn with a whisper of a black cape. On-trend embellishments included dégradé in tie-dyed fabric, beading treatments, and shimmering fringe, as well as a certain notion of gender fluidity in elaborately studded men’s jackets and iridescent trenches, for example. This particular dance floor is already jam-packed, so one wonders how the house will be able to rise above the commotion.Even so, in-house sources say that revenues have doubled since last year; they also say that they’re fielding requests from A-list stars in Hollywood—Vogue Runway promised not to jinx it by naming names, but if any one of those women actually shows up on the red carpet in Azzaro, that could prove a game changer. And if, as rumored, a beauty heavyweight steps in to burnish a label with fragrance franchises named Wanted and Chrome, there may be synergies and a new life yet on the fashion side. Those are some big ifs. Before all that, this house needs to really nail down who it’s talking to.
4 July 2019
Maxime Simoëns is in his third season as Azzaro’s creative director; the French couture house was founded at the end of the ’70s, so for the show’s inspiration he went the easy route. “It was the same time of the Studio 54 beginnings in New York,” he explained. “I wanted to celebrate a common ground: Grace Jones, Bianca Jagger, Cher . . . party spirit and fun! Fashion has to be cheerful, non?” Indeed. Studio 54’s cheerfulness has been mined extensively by generations of fashion designers. Simoëns jumped onto the bandwagon, adding his French-flavored interpretation to the disco nostalgics.The end of the ’70s/beginning of the ’80s repertoire was rolled out in a rather by-the-book version: sleek pantsuits with bell-bottom pants drenched in sequins, airy chiffon minidresses weighed down by undulating fringes, sensual pajama ensembles with palazzo pants and square-cut blouses covered in technicolor paillettes. It was glitzy, ritzy, and sparkly, a feast of Swarovski crystals lavishly affixed to every possible surface.Silhouettes were comme il faut body-con, a touch of French panache adding a twist of sexy insouciance. Long legs were ready to shimmy, exposed by ultra-short bustier minidresses where bows sprouted playfully. Elsewhere a slender see-through number was embroidered with sequins and fringed with feathers. It looked young and spectacular, tinged with disco glamour and effortless charm.
22 January 2019
The after-darksensualitéat Azzaro’s Spring couture show gave way to something brighter at Maxime Simoëns’s Fall outing for the house. Inspired by a trip to the tropics, Simoëns infused the collection with an exotic spirit, all palm fronds and shimmering jungle green fringes. Where this worked best was in a series of ombré Lurex-plissé gowns that faded from pastel pink to ice blue or lilac to orange. Compared to the sunset-hued soigné of these pieces, the literal leaf prints felt a bit obvious.Simoëns made up for that with some couture ideas that, while not the stars of the show, were quite strong. One, a relaxed white suit with crystal buttons on the trousers à la tearaway pants, was a smart blend of masculine/feminine–meets–athleisure. Another was a simple white double-breasted dress with beading across the torso that gradated from gold to silver, matte to shimmering, with an AzzaroAtailored into the back seam.A strass-laden blazer in a mélange of pastels, worn with an undone silk blouse and denim-blue snakeskin pants, was far from tropical, but it looked like what you might see girls wandering around the Marais wear on any given Saturday—same silhouette, same palette, but decidedly chicer materials. That kind of swift elevation of the everyday is Simoëns’s strength, having explored menswear with a splash of street in the break between designing his eponymous label and his arrival at Azzaro. A year and a half into his tenure at the house, he is wise to imbue a little more Maxime into each collection.
2 July 2018
Maxime Simoëns is back on track. Following last season’s palate cleanser, the designer has given quite a bit of thought to what couture could mean now, where ready-to-wear fits into the picture, and how to tackle menswear. In the end, he decided to put them all together in a collection whose baseline was “diversity and mega-glamour with a twist.”Although this outing was mainly couture, the high-end, ready-to-wear, and “atelier” bespoke creations for men were coherent additions to Azzaro, a house best known for sequins, shine, and seduction. In his search for a more casual vibe, the designer threw himself into fabric development, coming up with a gold brocade, leopard motifs in burnout velvet, sparkly tweed weaves in denim and gold, and several variations of silver and gold lamé jersey.“It’s not really a unisex proposition, but you get the sense that a woman could borrow her man’s jacket, and some of the men’s pieces borrow from the women’s, because they’re both romantic but androgynous,” the designer mused backstage before the show.That offhand attitude translated into skinny, rock-inflected looks such as white trousers swinging with chains, a pretty black dress flecked with gold motifs, and a number of looks that would be right at home at this Sunday’s Grammys. The “cherry blossom” velvet sheath dress embroidered with pearls and gold discs could easily take to a red carpet anywhere.Simoëns also looked to the house archives for inspiration, offering a toned-down take on Azzaro’s best-known design, the iconic three-ring dress, this time with nine rings. The Bravo Baratin, another house classic, was revisited in embroidered chiffon. So was a black mini with a top in strands of gold chains. “I’m not looking to reinvent everything. When a dress is good, sometimes all it needs is a little adjustment to fit with the times,” the designer said. He also revisited his own archives, sending out pieces in matte and shiny sequins that will likely find fans across Azzaro’s base.“I feel like we’re living in a time where customers aren’t interested in the traditional constraints of couture,” the designer observed. “I want to invent an easy couture so they don’t feel like they are wearing a disguise.” The effort was sincere—let’s see where it leads.
24 January 2018
As Arnaud Maillard and Alvaro Castejón wrapped up an intimate show-and-tell of their latest collection, they mentioned how Azzaro has been performing well in Asia, and that expanding the brand's North American presence is now top priority. It's not an insurmountable challenge if they can get their dresses on the leading ladies ofNashville. Fictional as Juliette Barnes and Rayna Jaymes may be, their performance dress code—sexy, sparkly, swishy—dovetails precisely with the designers' glitzy vision. The collection featured plenty of unabashed razzle-dazzle, with beaded fringe, crystal-covered paneling, and cutouts traced with mirror pieces. Yet none of this was as provocative as a full-length black dress with an undulating sheer panel that exposed a strategic amount of torso down the front and a surprising amount of cheek up the back. A conservative version filled in the serpentine-shaped peekaboo with translucent paillettes and Swarovski crystals.For the few pieces that qualified as daywear, hand-embellished disco bits settled onto epaulets and cuffs. A silvery knit sweater patterned in a diamond grid of micro monochromatic chain mail was akin to finding a precious pearl within a trunk of rhinestones. Likewise the geometric dévoré jersey—it could have been given a starring role. Instead, the collection intensified the brand codes to a fault. You might spot the body-skimming dresses on celebrities attending gala fund-raisers in Monte Carlo, or on television divas, but you'll be less likely to see them in the real world.
24 September 2013
When new designers move into an established fashion house, they can either play things safe or come out swinging. As the incoming artistic directors at Azzaro, Arnaud Maillard and Alvaro Castejón have made clear their intent to return the brand to its glory days.For their first collection, they zeroed in on the cherry blossom, or sakura, but instead of capturing its fragility, they gave it technical dimension and Technicolor impact—whether in stitched raffia with a glittery core, as raised leather petals lifting off the back of a white Perfecto, or as Plexi blooms on a body-skimming tulle gown. The last number was a deliberate reinterpretation of the famous dress worn by Jane Birkin in 1972, its strategically placed metal flower bits defining Azzaro's flashy, feminine spirit. The house's familiar crystals turned up in a myriad of ways: creating graphic contours on cocktail dresses and decorating column gowns in "flame"-like insets.Maillard called the new Azzaro girl a "luxury nomad," someone who goes from red carpet to philanthropic dinner, Dubai to Saint-Tropez. She can never have enough dresses, nor can she risk being seen in the same one as someone else. Loris Azzaro (who died in 2003) would have been sensitive to this pageantry. Were he alive today, it's likely he would have given Maillard and Castejón his blessing.
23 June 2013
Azzaro is in a transitional phase. In October, creative director Mathilde Castello Branco stepped down after only two seasons with the brand; a successor has not yet been named. This collection was designed by the in-house team, and the focus was explicitly on honoring the Loris Azzaro "codes"—crystal and chain, slinkiness and bared skin. Basically, Azzaro designed for the woman who was the life of the party. One thing about being the life of the party that Castello Branco got, as did Vanessa Seward before her, is that glitter and sex appeal won't get you very far unless they come accompanied by a punchy attitude and a good sense of humor. There's a great Helmut Newton photograph, from 1973, of a woman in an Azzaro crystal strass top throwing a glass of champagne at a woman dressed in the same outfit; you could scarcely imagine the woman in the Azzaro looks presented today having the sass to pull that move. This was pretty much glam by the numbers, with a smattering of stronger looks. Hollywood stylists will undoubtedly pick up on the grayish-mauve dress detailed with grosgrain ribbon and floral crystal embroidery, for instance. And a draped gown in a gold and black floral jacquard boasted a nice sense of drama—more of that fabric would have been welcome here. All in all, though, this Azzaro outing felt undirected. Which, for all intents and purposes, it was.
28 February 2013
Mathilde Castello Branco lasted just about a year at the helm of Azzaro. The founder of the French brand, Loris Azzaro, left a legacy of red-carpet razzle-dazzle. The job of the creative director who takes Castello Branco's place will be to expand the label's repertoire beyond cocktail and high evening. A fashion company can't exist without being multi-channeled these days.The design studio that's been put in charge in the meantime checked off all the boxes: outerwear, tailleurs, fitted day dresses, a jumpsuit, and even handbags, the weakest part of the new lot. Edgier-than-usual chain embroideries made an impact on little black dresses, Swarovski crystals having long been the house's embellishment of choice. A ruby red long-sleeved gown with a diagonal slice of a cutout on the torso was as good as Azzaro gets, now or then. Still, there's a nagging feeling that none of it matters until the brand finds a designer it can live with.
21 January 2013
Loris Azzaro lived for cocktail hour. Not personally, but professionally. He designed dresses for after dark that glinted with light—crystal embellishments being his signature. Mathilde Castello Branco, the creative director installed at the house last year, took that foundation and turned it into a theme, of sorts, for Spring. She hand-drew a naïve print of tumblers and martini glasses and the words "pchitt" (the sound a Champagne bottle makes when it's uncorked) and "hummm" (the sound you make after your first sip) and used it for a long hostess dress, as well as a poolside maillot-and-shorts set. Pushing the metaphor further, Castello Branco whipped up a party dress in a dégradé of Champagne-colored sequins and embroidered the black tulle back of a long navy silk gown in crystal fireworks. Fireworks at midnight!Dialing up the whimsy has been part of Castello Branco's MO since she arrived at Azzaro from Lanvin. But she was at her best here when she was playing it straight, as she did with a pair of silk jumpsuits—one in white with crystal-studded tuxedo stripes, and the other in navy, cut like a backless waistcoat. To employ an overused but in this case entirely apt expression, they were seriously chic.
27 September 2012
Mathilde Castello Branco is a fabulist, so when she decided that for Resort, she would work around cocktail, she didn't just work around cocktail—she narrated it. "What is cocktail for me?" she asked a visitor at her Faubourg Saint-Honoré atelier. "It's a woman at home having people over at 4 or 5 p.m." Her clothes are her cocktails. So she explained her palette: piña colada white, maraschino red, curaçao blue, whiskey gold. The kiss marks embroidered onto chiffon are "like lips on a glass." Her heels come with clear "ice pick" heels. "If I want to break my ice, I use my shoe," she explained. "It's a bit more glamorous."Glamour is the Azzaro stock in trade, and Castello Branco delivers. She scatters crystals, drapes jersey, and insets sections of lamé. She's managed to loosen up the strictures of cocktail dressing a bit by inserting ease, and among her other options, she included what amounts to a lamé jogging suit. Still, what stands out here are the more elaborate evening options, the sort that Loris Azzaro himself created. Castello Branco has shown herself to be a conscientious steward of house traditions in small ways: Her lookbook photos for Resort, for example, refer back to a 1975 Azzaro perfume ad in which the founder looks on from a celestial window as a nun in lipstick applies her scent. But the truer homage may come from the exquisitely beaded gowns that closed out the collection, each painstakingly hand-worked for two weeks by a husband-and-wife team who have been with the atelier for 30 years. "They are thememoire vivantof the house," the designer said.
24 June 2012
New designer, new directive? At Azzaro, the answer is both yes and no. Mathilde Castello Branco was named the brand's creative director last year when the spot was vacated by Vanessa Seward, but the mandate remains essentially the same: pretty party dresses and event gowns, with the crystal strass embroideries that put the house founder's name in lights so many years ago.Castello Branco, who hails from Lanvin, used the crystals sparingly and with some wit. The bow at the neck of a simple dove gray dress was picked out in stones, as was its tulle-covered peekaboo back, and the tiers on a little black number were embroidered with the crystals in a subtle, dégradé style.What felt newsy was a print of aces, diamonds, hearts, and spades—we can't recall ever seeing a print at Azzaro—and a silver python used for a sweetheart-neckline cocktail frock and a sleeveless coat-dress. Outerwear was never part of Loris Azzaro's vocabulary, and it was the weak link here, but overall, this new incarnation of Azzaro holds promise. Next on Castello Branco's agenda should be finding a space that can accommodate the curiosity seekers. The house atelier doesn't cut it.
28 February 2012
Mathilde Castello Branco is the newly installed creative director at Azzaro. She hails from Lanvin and has a bit of Alber Elbaz's gift for waxing lyrical about her creations. A Swarovksi crystal button at the back of the neck is "like a touch of perfume," and the organza sleeves of a dress are "like clouds."So far, the clothes hold up to her résumé. There was a smart fur coat with puffed sleeves that unzipped at the shoulders so you can trade them for simpler ribbed knit ones. Clever in a different way was a short-sleeve sweater with a demure trompe l'oeil collar that turned to reveal a scooped-out bare back.But Azzaro's raison d'être is dresses, and what was promising about today's presentation was the diversity of Castello Branco's offering, from long fourreau dresses with subtle, unexpected asymmetries to shorter cocktail numbers in jersey. The latter had knit waists that functioned like corsets but, the designer promised, were a hell of a lot more comfortable.
23 January 2012
Vanessa Seward left Azzaro earlier this year, and the new creative director, Mathilde Castello Branco, doesn't make her debut until next season. A design team was responsible for the collection for Spring, and you could tell. There wasn't much of a unifying theme to string together the jumpsuits, evening gowns, and bathing suits beyond the house's signature crystals. Azzaro isn't a collection that requires deep thinking on anyone's part—it's about party dresses and red-carpet frocks. Still, Seward could be depended on for a bit of humor or wit, and there was always her fab husband Bertrand Burgalat's soundtrack to keep you entertained if the clothes faltered. There was nothing flat-out wrong here today, other than a rhinestone-trimmed minidress dripping in silver paillettes and the matching Deco headpiece it was paired with. But a hint of personality would've been nice.
1 October 2011
In March, Azzaro parted ways with Vanessa Seward, its longtime designer, and the spot she vacated has not yet been filled. Brand reps promise a revelation in September. But time, tide, and the fashion calendar wait for no man or woman. The studio team, together with an unnamed outside consultant, put together the label's Resort range. It didn't necessarily suggest a distinct new direction for the label—on the contrary, it dug back through the Azzaro archives for inspiration—but it did imply a decisive break with the sixties-leaning, kitten-cute style Seward had proposed. Gone were the bows and the frills; the seventies, not the sixties, were the new decade of choice. Overall, simplicity reigned, gaudied up a bit with metal mesh and jeweled details. (The studio had been thinking of the gems of the Romanovs.) If there wasn't a strong point of view on display, there were enough party dresses to hold fans through the holidays.
25 June 2011
Vanessa Seward's formula at Azzaro is tried and true. Make it short and sexy, and sprinkle liberally with strass. A cheeky black "tuxedo peacoat" with a big bow planted on the hem in the back, and a minidress with tiers of white ruffles edged in black—a number, Seward said, made in the image of sixties French pop star Sylvie Vartan—were both charmers. The color palette was almost exclusively black and white, which made a cape-back party dress in crystal-embroidered silver and gold lace stand out all the more.The other bit of welcome news here: evening jumpsuits. Seward included a handful in her presentation, and they ranged from sporty (contrast-trim Peter Pan collar, buttons at the ankles) to saucy. Transparency was an undercurrent, and an all-in-one was inset from hem to shoulder with peekaboo lace. The only thing missing? Gowns. Curious, that. Seward has been on a roll lately, dressing the expectant Natalie Portman for her SAG Awards win (no, the dress wasn't adjusted, Portman's a petite mom-to-be). It would've been a kick to see some of that red-carpet magic in Seward's showroom today.
4 March 2011
If there was something particularly youthful about Vanessa Seward's Azzaro collection, you can blame her 5-month-old baby, Jacqueline. "They're like little girl's dresses, but more grown-up," she said of a group of short frocks in cotton dot with ruffles at the shoulders, hem, and neckline. A micro-floral print—discovered in the archives of Abraham, a fabric supplier to Paris couture houses, and used here on a shirtdress and a blouson minidress—kept the theme going.Then out came a thigh-skimming navy shift with a plunging V-shaped tulle inset lined in crystals. Maybe the Azzaro woman isn't so innocent after all. The bare back of a halterneck dress seemed to say as much, as did the side cutouts on the collection's best look, which featured a crystal-smothered bodice and tiered white silk skirt connected by a big black bow.Seward shows her collection in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré store's intimate second-floor salon, with the models making fast changes in a pair of dressing rooms, and her assistants showing off alternate versions of each dress on hangers. There were a few floor-length lookers it would've been nice to see on the girls, not only because long is such a big story for Spring, but also because it would've added some grown-up variety. Still, this show was long on charm.
1 October 2010
One could argue that red-carpet labels have it easier than their more broadly focused colleagues in times of recession. After all, they exist in a crystal-studded world where there has never been any pretense that their clothes are for the "normal woman," whoever that mythical beast may be. And no matter how badly the economy tanks—heck, even if there were a nuclear apocalypse—Ryan Seacrest will still be standing by a red carpet somewhere, demanding to know who Kate Bosworth is wearing.On the other hand, there must be something a little weird designing intricately beaded and diamanté-dappled dresses while the news is still full of bankruptcy. Azzaro's Vanessa Seward seems to think so. In this collection, wisely shown as a small presentation in the store (Azzaro may be perfect for the celebrity market, but it still hasn't quite got the clout to withstand the pressure and expectation of a full-scale fashion show), she included a surprising amount of daywear and sober coats. Woman cannot live by diamanté alone.But even these black and white dresses and tuxedo jackets had something of the starlet to them, not least because so many of them ended at the upper thigh. Some of the dresses had flippy little skirts, others had a stiffer bell shape, and the designer had particular fun with some louche seventies pieces, such as strapless jumpsuits. As if to prove that these wispy bits and bobs weren't only for Hollywood waifs, a very pregnant Seward sat in the audience sporting a white playsuit from the collection splattered with paw prints. These were supposed to represent the paws of her cat Monsieur Jo—who also made an appearance in Seward's last collection. This was clearly Seward's favorite part of her collection, as she couldn't resist jumping up, mid-presentation, and explaining the reference to the audience. How many Azzaro customers will feel as enthusiastic about Jo's contribution remains to be seen—though, to be fair, the cat-loving fashionista is a fairly well-established sub-demographic.It was soon back to business as usual with plenty of long or mini black dresses, heavy with embellishment. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that the best were the ones that kept decoration to a seductive minimum, such as the floaty black minidress with sparkling black buttons. It turns out that not only can red-carpet brands work in the recession, in some ways they can be improved by it.
5 March 2010
Vanessa Seward's Azzaro is a go-to brand for starlets looking for red-carpet razzle-dazzle. There was plenty of that in her intimate Spring presentation, from a relatively understated white strapless column accompanied by a gold chain-mail bolero to a swingier, short, gold fringed number with crystals strung on the silk threads. Like the rest of the collection, they looked like a good time, but they weren't exactly what you'd call unexpected.Seward did attempt to introduce some newness into her dress-focused lineup. First, she enlisted her friends the graphic artists Kuntzel + Deygas (perhaps best known for theirCatch Me If You Canopening credits) to create a few drawings based on her cat Jo, and had them embroidered onto a group of short white cocktail dresses. Charming and whimsical, certainly, but presumably quite limited in their appeal. Seward's other idea was to turn slouchy sweatshirts into minidresses, in a navy and white heart print for day and a burnished gold for night. "They're still short," she explained, "but not as aggressive as something tight." In a similar vein, she showed a silk jumpsuit with an easy drawstring waist. Yes, there were crystals at the neckline, but its otherwise sporty sensibility was fresh for Azzaro. It made you want to see Seward get better acquainted with her relaxed side.
30 September 2009
Like the label's late founder, Loris Azzaro, Vanessa Seward knows her way around a little black dress. For Fall, the creative director of nearly five years' standing delivered plenty on that front, trimmed as usual in Swarovski crystals. Among the numbers that will have the longest legs outside her rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré showroom: a short tank dress edged front and back in a chain-link rhinestone pattern, a long-sleeved style with a big bow at the hem, and a third with swirls of silk and sparkling fringe wrapping around the torso.For variety, there was a sweater dress in emerald green with matching crystal buttons. This was made in collaboration with April March, a young singer on the record label of Bertrand Burgalat, Seward's husband. (The designer has teamed up with Jemima Khan and Eugenie Niarchos in the past.) As for red-carpet prospects, the standout was a narrow column gown inset with black lace in back that was decorated with crystal violin finials, a nod in the direction of Seward's musicalmari. But what really caught the eye was a silk blouse with teardrop-shaped cutouts at the neck worn with high-waisted tuxedo trousers. Pants weren't an Azzaro signature, but Seward's looked sharp. To keep the brand vital and growing, she would do well to come up with other ways of injecting more of her own imprint.
4 March 2009