This is Pieter Mulier‘s third season for Alaïa. The Belgian designer has already proved that he understands the codes of Azzedine Alaïa, and is capable to convey them to a contemporary audience with grace, sophistication and refinement. The spring-summer 2023 fashion show, which opened the haute couture week in Paris, was, however, the designer’s most turbulent line-up. It seems that Mulier wanted to tackle far too many Alaïa themes and in the end, the collection read as overcharged and, well, messy. Of course, each garment put separate is a masterful work of artistry and tailoring – we are speaking of Monsieur Alaïa’s studio know-how – but the overall of the collection needed an edit. But let’s start from the beginning.

Mulier invited people to the unfinished space that will be the new Alaia store on the Faubourg St. Honoré – an architectural work-in-progress that he saw as the perfect foil for the feeling of his third collection: “something rough and something elegant at the same time.” It crackled with energy; the models collectively channeling a modern vision of the glamazonian power of female physicality that was born in this house in the ’80s. As if to emphasize that it’s dressing the body he’s talking about, Mulier opened with second-skin almost-sheer stretch silk layered bodysuits, the first with a single trompe l’oeil pearl-drop nipple “piercing.” What followed flowed into all kinds of sophisticated twists and turns of draping, wrapping, ruching, and knotting, interspersed with the kind of anatomical knitted body-dresses that are an Alaia wonder. Eyes fell to the footwear: long-haired boots cuffed with huge metallic bangles on cubic lucite heels; black lacquer stiletto heels in the shape of a naked woman’s legs. Mulier has an instinct for the extreme accessory which chimes with today’s hunger for the surreal. The chunky bangles, his own invention, are bound to trigger bounty-hunters, but the suggestive stilettos were reissued Azzedine originals from 1992. Mulier said he’d never had the chance to explore drape in his former jobs (at Christian Dior and Calvin Klein), but if that was ever an ambition, he’s come to the right place. Alaia is staffed with people who have a spectacular and nuanced repertoire of technical skills which enable Mulier to model ideas in 3-D; to make dresses that rely on asymmetry, hip-ruching, suspension, and the North African influences which Alaia used as a source of innovation.

Mulier said he’d been “obsessed with a 1984 show, which not many people know, because Azzedine was basically draping with viscose, and also draping with leather.” In emulating the latter – the leather and shearling – he left edges raw and invented a version of perforated black leather – almost like paillettes – to make a rough-edged t-shirt and tiny skirt that Tina Turner would have worked to the max. The knack of it was to make the complex look almost spontaneous. Again, the craftsmanship amazed, yet the the final result unfortunately felt heavy. There’s a sense that Mulier is learning on the job all the time, and finding the creative balance between respecting the brand’s codes and his own vision of contemporary relevance. It takes time for people to get to know and understand each other in any house where there’s an atelier. The spectacularly erotic finale dress – this one would make Azzedine proud. Somehow, it consisted of a black velvet skirt, suspended from a ribbon-belt, the central drape radiating, by some magic, from a line of vertical geometric transparent paillettes. And on the top, a sheer black long sleeve bodysuit. It looked astonishing enough, walking sinuously towards you, but the real impact of this genius construct was in the back. The draped swoop of the skirt dipped down just a fraction below the line of the bodysuit. Above it was the belt, tied nonchalantly in a bow. As I’ve mentioned earlier: the new Alaïa keeps the extremely high standards of garment-construction. I just wish Mulier would introduce some much-needed lightness to his work, so that these exquisite looks could truly speak, and not fight for space. That’s one of Monsieur Azzedine’s main ethoses: find the right balance.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.