Feathers and Embroidery Presented in the 2022 Fall Haute Collections

COURTESY OF IMAGO

The haute couture collections for Fall 2022 have emerged from two years of isolation with sumptuous and dramatic pieces. An ode to unique silhouettes, cloud taffeta, tassels, crystals, and petals, each collection presents a deeper and more valuable meaning to the show. The love and skill is shown vividly from each member devoting their life is shown through each piece. The memorable collections of Schiaparelli, Elie Saab, Dior, and Chanel will inspire many collections to come.

Schiaparelli

For this season’s Schiaparelli haute couture collection, Daniel Rosberry, the house’s artistic director, took the idea of “being in conversation with the people who had been so inspired by her.” “Shocking! The Surreal World of Elsa Schiaparelli,” high-impact exhibition opening at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs includes pieces that fellow designers such as YSL, JPG, Azzedine Alaïa, and Christian Lacroix, created in homage to the house’s genius. 

Earlier this year, Rosberry had an in-person conversation with Christian Lacroix. “We talked about color, we talked about volume. We talked about [Lacroix’s native city of] Arles, and for him it meant black bulls, white horses, and the gold of the sun, which just kept ringing in my ear. It was probably, for him, a passing conversation, but for me it felt like someone plugged me into the wall a little bit, and I wanted to make a collection that brought me back to the kind of fashion that I fell in love with and that period of fashion that feels, in retrospect, very naive in a way.” (Vogue Runway) With the inspiration that hit the very inside of Roseberry, he evoked the euphoria of Lacroix’s 1987 debut collection with its pouf silhouette, bustels, gigot sleeves, and embroideries. He wanted the ‘80s nostalgia to be present, but engrossed with rigorous tailoring. This was exemplified by the coat dress worn by Carolyn Murphy and what Roseberry described as “this sort of sensual body-conscious and body-obsessed evening wear, everything built around the bustier and the corset.” (Vogue Runway) This meant evening necklines that plunged south and cantilevered bodices, floral displays, embroidery, and leather molded to create intricate 3D petals. The btle homages to Elsa Schiaparelli’s own Surrealist inspirations, like the neckline of a black velvet jacket cut into a face’s profile à la Cocteau and the crusted Lesage embroideries that she reveled in and a simple black velvet evening dress that looked like one of Roseberry’s dramatic fashion sketches come to life was brought into the fashion world thanks to a pair of earrings, reminiscing golden grapes and so heavy that they had to be secured with a discreet hair band. It was all, as Roseberry himself promised, a “mash-up between something that felt incredibly modern and then also wildly romantic.” (Vogue Runway). 

Elie Saab

Flamboyant is an understatement for the men’s couture line launched by Elie Saab. The collection presents sumptuous embellishments and embroidered intricacies that are Saab’s signature. The sense of drama is nothing new with Saab, and there was no lack of bold features either. The looks were all equally majestic, carpeted with multicolored plumage intarsia on black velvet and sweeping floor-length ball gown with criss-crossed ribbons on the bodice. The theme of flame red and black kept the first part of the collection on a dramatic note, with black mesh see-through gowns embroidered with serpentine curlicues, and sculptural column dresses in deep red taffeta with cloud-like sleeves puffed up. The second half of the collection takes a complete turn nude mesh tulle. Each piece was variously shaped and accentuated with beaded fringes, embroidered tassels, drippings of crystals, and appliqués of organza petals.

Dior

Creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri, along with Ukrainian artist Olesia Trofymenko collaborated on the fall haute couture show of 2022. “I saw this work of hers in Maxxi, the contemporary art museum in Rome, in which she embroidered onto a painted landscape,” said the designer. “When I saw this piece, I understood that the reference in the embroidery comes from Ukrainian folk costume.” The Tree of Life, an Ukrainian folklore, represented the emblematic theme. The idea resonated with Chiuri because the symbolism of the Tree of Life occurs across so many cultures and religions. “It speaks about the circle of life,” “And we have to remember all the time. In some way we need to rethink again now, to move to the future.” (Vogue Runway) To Chiuri’s mind, haute couture is an intimate practice between the client and the craftspeople who are behind making their clothes. There is a sense of gentleness, reservation, and beauty to the color white and beige, similarity in the long silhouettes, big-sleeved blouses, and tiny jackets and capes. This year’s collection from Chiuri was anything less of a classic ‘Dior’ look, but as you look deeper, the atmosphere that Dior migrated into is shown in the dresses and fitted jackets. The collection was romantic and reminaged, incorporating flowers, folk costume embroideries, and craft.  

Chanel

This year’s haute couture collection presented by Chanel reflects the needs and desires of the houses’s clients and the eclectic sources of inspiration. Virginie Viard, the creative director for Chanel, took her mentor, Karl Lagerfeld, into mind on imposing new silhouettes on almost every look in the collection. Inspiration came from memory of Inès de Fressange dressed by Lagerfeld in a jacket of bright grass green and shocking pink (for a 1988 Chanel couture show, when Viard first joined the house), to a shot of Fred Astaire in cinematic action, the tails of his white tie evening coat caught flaring out in mid-dance move, to a 19th century shot of a real-life Annie Oakley, to archive Chanel references from slouchy 1920s day suits to slithery 1930s gowns to prim 1960s tailoring, to Lagerfeld’s vividly impressionistic sketches from the 2000s. (Vogue Runway) These historical moments within the house serve as starting points for each outfit that evolve with textile designers and makers who weave those extraordinary painterly tweeds, and the dressmakers who understand how to make perfect pleats that “move beautifully.” 

To set the scene, Viard partnered with artist Xavier Veilhan (who created a Constructivist set for the spring couture collection) to build a series of structures that formed symbolic landscapes (arches, bullseye targets, mobiles, cubes of bubblegum pink recycled plastics, etc.) Set in the outdoor stadium of the equestrian L’Étrier de Paris center in the Bois de Boulogne, guests walked through a series of structors before moving indoors to sand and a set of kinetic color blocks in black, white, sand yellow, and gray. The soundtrack was created by Viard’s friend, Sébastien Tellier, and was set to a video projected on a giant screen as a backdrop that featured a varied cast of Charlotte Casiraghi and Pharrell Williams. The show continued with “embroidered leaves on a white tulle trapeze dress, shadowing a print of the same motif underneath; an all-over deco print on a bell-skirted coat dress that on closer inspection turned out have been entirely beaded in sequins by Lesage; or tufts of ostrich plumes painstakingly applied to black chiffon and glimpsed through the openings in a streamlined trench coat of textured black tweed.” (Vogue Runway)