Last season, Air Alaïa touched down in New York City, turning the Guggenheim into its runway with Rihanna front row. For its summer/fall 2025 show at Paris Fashion Week, the brand kept things closer to home, though no less art-inflected. The event was held at the Alaïa atelier, and sculptures by the Dutch artist Mark Manders were arranged throughout.
“Manders’ work fascinates me,” creative director Pieter Mulier wrote in his show notes. “Each of his sculptures seem itself a work either in progress, or marked by the passage of an imaginary time, reminiscent at once of many different cultures. And that idea of a non-linearity—of space, and of time—was inspiring. The idea of codes of beauty outside of any era or geography, free of boundaries, is innately keyed to the philosophy of Alaïa, our identity.”
And indeed, these looks did feel otherworldly. With sculptural shapes, exaggerated sea-anemone-esque shoulders, and cocoon-like hoods, they brought an unplaceable, avant-garde sensibility without sacrificing the house’s body-conscious DNA. For example, metal tubing was woven into a jersey gown so that it followed every curve of a model’s body. And sinuous sheer turtlenecks anchored exaggerated, rolled-waist skirts.
Movement was another hallmark, from the off-center pleats that leapt off skirts to the backless draped cutout gown that Alex Consani wore. Mulier said that he thought of these pieces as “kinetic sculpture,” and they were certainly works of art. But running through all the headiness on display, there was a vein of practicality: His covetable robe coats and sleek puffers are surely bound for the same runaway success as the Le Teckel bag and the iconic mesh flat.
Véronique Hyland is ELLE’s Fashion Features Director and the author of the book Dress Code, which was selected as one of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year. Her writing has previously appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, W, New York magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, and Condé Nast Traveler.
