blendnewyork…Fashion.Art.Style.Inspiration.Love

There was something decidedly less precious about Alexis Mabille’s girl this season. His show notes described a girl who’s in touch with her masculine side yet sticks to her womanly ways. That dose of sartorial testosterone seemed to be just the thing to temper Mabille’s saccharine leanings. Banker stripes merged surprisingly well with white lace as trim on sweet little shirtdresses, and even better when inset in the sleeves of a crisp button-down. One of Mabille’s twists was the shirt formed into a bustier, its sleeves knotted into a bow. One slip and it could have felt gimmicky, but he got it right, particularly on two evening looks near the end of the show. In fact, the best things skewed very XY, like another evening option of an hourglass-shaped waistcoat and sleek, toreador-style pants with the tiniest flourish of a Mabille bow at the calf. Inspired by the cinematography of the film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, the show was staged in a picture-perfect greenhouse at the Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil. That gave Mabille full rein with the Laura Ashley florals in the middle of the show, which, when combined with tasseled fringe and lace, recalled a little girl’s ticky-tacky bedroom circa 1984. And in that vein, we can excuse it as a passing phase. (by Meenal Mistry style.com)

Alexis Mabille went through a phase of thinking it was modern to mix his ready-to-wear and his couture into one homogeneous stew. Reason prevailed when he realized that wasn’t doing his craft any favors. But with his new couture outing, he maintained a ready-to-wear fundamental by building his collection from mix-and-match separates.

He started out with a basic eight top-and-bottom combinations and managed to double, maybe even triple them. Admittedly, it was mostly by exchanging a skirt for a pair of pants, or removing a dressy outer layer, but Mabille made his point nevertheless. With a twist, of course. His clothes are scarcely the stuff of an everyday wardrobe, hence his insistence that he was designing for “high-profile events” in the life of the modern professional woman. So a tuxedo jacket could be paired with pants and a pussy-bowed blouse in pink silk crepe, or worn over a simple black cocktail dress. Or a long evening coat might be worn either with a black turtleneck and full lace skirt or a lace bustier and black cigarette pants.

The craftsmanship that Mabille was keen to highlight was most obvious in a black velvet column with a lavishly embroidered and beaded bodice. Random trompe l’oeil petals cascaded down its front. It was the kind of seemingly throwaway gesture that confirms Mabille’s sly talent. (by Tim Blanks – style.com) Here’s some highlights from the show: