Against the Grain: Honest Thoughts On Spring/Summer 2024 Couture Trends
A review of the spring/summer 2024 couture trends, from Maison Margiela to Simone Rocha.
Injecting a high to the couture presentations in January was the spirit of originality. As of late, fashion shows have been plagued by gimmicks pandering towards virality, homogeneity, and purposeless archival references. Desire for creative dopamine that moves the needle forward is at a fever pitch. This season, there is comfort in witnessing several couturiers reviving the lost art of storytelling with a unique point of view. Couture houses that left others in the dust asserted why fashion matters in times when its relevance is increasingly questioned. Such designers have looked inwards to examine who inhabits their maison’s collections. Each is interested in the triadic relationship between garments, physicality and the wearer’s personality.
Image courtesy of Simone Rocha.
Bows and All
Irish-Cantonese designer Simone Rocha introduced a playful, feminine charge to Jean Paul Gaultier as this season’s guest maestro. The fusion of Gaultier’s subversiveness with Rocha’s light-hearted approach to femininity birthed an original fairytale that put a contemporary twist on Rococo aesthetics.
Image courtesy of Simone Rocha.
Ever the witty provocateur, Rocha brought coquettish whimsy and sensual quirkiness to her collection. Corset-laced panels and rhinestone flowers engulfed décolleté gowns, négligées and padded boy shorts in nude and rose poudré hues. Barely-there panniers and bodices came in varying degrees of stiffness and opacity. Take, for instance, the opening look: a semi-sheer dress constructed with a crinoline underskirt that reveals a faint hint of high-waisted underwear. Eyes of Providence replace breast pockets. The hems and cuffs are embroidered with motifs of palms, roses and thorns.
Images courtesy of Simone Rocha.
Reinterpretations of the house’s signature styles and nautical codes were abound too. Satin ribbons, both tied and unfurling, translated the masculine allure of Gaultier’s sailor hats and marinières into soft, delicate forms. Bustiers appeared razor-sharp as Rochas turned the tips of Madonna-esque cone bras into upward curling thorns. Tulle skirts, Irish lace and hair-trimmed platform heels added touches of frivolity to the collection.
Needless to say, Rocha is rewriting the ancien régime’s rules of modesty and resisting polite society’s need for perfection. Something the idiom “put a bow on it” epouses. Corsetry and ribbons—however tight, tangled or undone they are—can be appreciated for their beauty without the burden of misogynistic connotations. In many ways, Rocha’s audacious collection is a reminder of how there is room to challenge the status quo within the cage of commercialised luxury. Hefty price tags aside, the rebellious feminine charm that Rocha’s sartorial attitude possesses has staying power.
Seeing Red
Over at Robert Wun, there was a synthesis of architectural precision and macabre visions. The underpinnings of Wun’s collection were designer’s trademark creations: pleated armour suits, voluminous floral ruffles and rained-on gowns dripping in Swarovski crystals. But beneath the fragile beauties, a menacing undertone incited fear and admiration.
Wun could not have conjured a more Faustian-like runway, sending down models covered in shattered glass, dagger-like red nails and hand signs symbolising the Buddhist Wheel of Law. Drawing inspiration from horror movies, Wun’s surreal forms maintained their sensuous appeal with the elegant craftsmanship of milliner Awon Golding and jeweller Anabel Chan.
It should also be noted that Wun is a poetic dreamer. Embroidered evening dresses were poignant nods to grief, pain and passion. Also amplifying the dark romance were gowns that presented the illusion of spilled ink, paint splatters and bleeding bodies. A layered tulle gown with over 750 written words was dedicated to the memory of Wun’s cat Taro.
As couture shows go, bridal comes last. But this time, Wun’s interpretation of a wedding ensemble is a spangled white gown and veil that comes ‘bloodstained’ in red sequins. What follows the bride is Wun’s closing look: a crimson dress constructed with visual artist Yuma Burgess’ 3D sculpture of a sinister, faceless human protruding from the back, precariously tugging at the gown’s neckline and strap. It is an unsettling end to Wun’s presentation, but a profound one too: It takes two to make an accident. And sometimes, “I do” forms a chasm that exists between good and evil.
Wun’s sophomore couture collection, which coincided with the brand's 10th anniversary, cements the designer as a force to be reckoned with. For sure, all that glory and gore leaves us hungry for more of what the house will bring.
Images courtesy of Maison Margiela.
Sense and Sensibility
Wrapping up the couture season was the unforgettable presentation of Maison Margiela’s Artisanal collection. Beneath Pont Alexandre III at 3 a.m., creative director John Galliano reawakened the underbelly of early twentieth-century Paris. Models embodied hoodlums, hedonists and streetwalkers; individuals who populated the phantasmagorical images of Brassaï and Toulouse-Lautrec’s paintings.
Galliano is no stranger to decadent theatrics and romantic fantasies. Ever since his 1984 graduation collection, Les Incroyables, he intoxicated us with flamboyant collections that animated fashion history. But never before has Galliano conveyed nor explored perversity and abjection—territories anchoring Lee McQueen’s oeuvre—as in this couture show.
Over a year was spent on this spectacle that connected a cinematic prelude with a staged runway for live and digital audiences. As expected, the internet was in a frenzy. A visceral evocation of a bygone era, the show's beauty transcended the flatness of screens.
Images courtesy of Maison Margiela.
Fashion is said to be back with a capital F. But why? For one, it is the laborious development of innovative techniques by Galliano and his team over 12 months: Milletrage created featherlight garments imitating heavy-duty fabrics. Caisetting made delicate fabrics resemble corrugated cardboard. Aquarelling, the draping of printed tulle voilettes, mimicked the watercolour painting technique to produce sun-bleached, tobacco-stained and moonlit textures.
Images courtesy of Maison Margiela.
As per show notes, the invitation “to take a walk with me, offline” was a voyeuristic exploration of a sordid cityscape. Galliano’s proposition that the self is shaped by appearances shined through in his magnification of the unnoticed: interior lives of night-time revellers whose garments and bodies keep the score.
In an industry where buccal fat removals, Ozempic drugs and waifs reign, Galliano’s celebration of those with outlawed existences and unconventional rituals of dress felt urgent. His curvaceous porcelain dolls, garish apparitions and corseted wanderers unabashedly embraced themselves regardless if they looked disreputable.
The show’s emotional core came through the corsets, a manipulative garment inducing pain and pleasure. Evident in Leon Dame’s vulnerable performance of a fugitive-turned-dandy, accepting our natures is a journey oscillating from dysphoria to euphoria. Pressures to regulate the physical and social bodies we inhabit is never-ending. But what sets Galliano’s underworld apart is the possibility of freedom and forgiveness. Maison Margiela’s Artisanal collection could not have been more poignant with its apt closing track, Adele’s ‘Hometown Glory’.
Unmistakably a show that will be seared into our memories, Galliano’s ode to valiant outsiders is a reminder of why people care about fashion. And how it unites us all in the pursuit of belonging. May this beacon of hope light the way forward—before it is too late for Galliano to pass the torch.
This article was originally edited and published in a+ Singapore’s April 2024 issue.
