Style Check: Atelier Versace kicks off Haute Couture fashion week with Lady Gaga
The world of Haute Couture is the true incubator of high fashion, where wild ideas and uncompromising beauty is the order of the day. Since each piece is made-to-order by exceptionally wealthy clients, there are fewer concerns about margins, production quantities and wearability that plague the ready-to-wear market.
How fitting then that Lady Gaga, couture queen and pop star extraordinaire, sat on the front row at the opening show of Paris Haute Couture week on Sunday evening.
Wearing a gem encrusted hooded, draped and figure hugging black dress, Gaga paid homage to one of her favourite brands at the Atelier Versace show. Designer Donatella Versace, the other important petite blonde, sent her models down the runway to a compilation of Gaga hits. Grecian goddesses in sensual draped silk jersey in twinkling black, white, then icy pale blues, pinks and lilacs broken up with shots of lurid yellow and purple.
But this being Versace, these goddesses wore thigh-high splits, sequins and crystal encrusted bodices as well as Grace Jones big shoulders and draped hoods attached to jackets and dresses.
Bustiers were painstakingly sewn with metallic beads, crystals in geometric patterns that appeared “like tattoos on the skin”. The silhouette, undoubted feminine, was cinched at the waist with sensual drapes that emphasised the hips, shoulders and neck. Slivers of silk jersey would slink towards low scoop backs and long, semi-transparent full skirts that looked like “liquid glass”.
“This collection has a control and elegance,” wrote Donatella Versace in her show notes, “as well as a provocative attitude.” Sensual, princess-y and a little saccharine, this Spring Summer this year couture collection was definitely more literal than her last. It did still have plenty of show stoppers however. We can definitely see Lady Gaga in the lilac hooded bandeau top and big skirt ensemble, the sheer black netted, crystal jumpsuit or that powder pink and blue full fox stole.
