Forty-two years in the past, Azzedine Alaïa, the designer lovingly dubbed the King of Cling, took his sinuous present on the highway to New York Metropolis for a present at Bergdorf Goodman. Pat Cleveland and Alva Chin walked the runway. With its sharp, barely sci-fi leathers and knits, the gathering was extraordinarily ’80s, in the absolute best method.
For his personal New York present, the home of Alaïa’s artistic director Pieter Mulier picked an equally iconic location: the Guggenheim, whose curvilinear Frank Lloyd Wright ramp served as an elaborate runway for a mannequin forged that included Kendall Jenner and Vittoria Ceretti. It marked the primary time the museum has performed host to a trend present.
And you understand your occasion will likely be an internet-breaking one when Rihanna herself, in a customized strapless Alaïa costume full with a prepare, makes a much-photographed entrance. Whereas she regarded on approvingly, Mulier put his personal spin on the label’s standbys: hooded clothes and abundantly pleated miniskirts. He experimented with quantity and abstraction through an ethereal cut-out costume that skimmed the physique and puffball-style creations that playfully took up house.
Rihanna in customized Alaïa.
The skin-baring, sculptural seems, which featured nothing in the way in which of zippers or buttons (in quintessential Azzedine trend) felt according to the directional, but horny territory Mulier has been tilling all through his tenure.
Like Alaïa himself, Mulier has a powerful connection to the town; he lived right here whereas working at Calvin Klein. And this isn’t the tip of Alaïa’s love story with New York. The model is promising a “sequence of unique moments” that may unfurl by the weekend. One may simply be coming to a sidewalk close to you.
Véronique Hyland is ELLE’s Trend Options Director and the creator of the guide Dress Code, which was chosen as one among The New Yorker’s Finest Books of the 12 months. Her writing has beforehand appeared in The New York Instances Journal, The New Yorker, W, New York journal, Harper’s Bazaar, and Condé Nast Traveler.
