Alaïa's Summer-Fall 2024 Collection Is Made Using a Single Yarn
Photos: Courtesy of Alaïa
Azzedine Alaïa didn't follow the traditional fashion calendar — he'd show when he was ready, or when he wanted. Pieter Mulier, now the keeper of the late designer's legacy as the creative director of his namesake brand, has adopted a slightly more structured approach, still honoring that spirit of doing what makes the most sense: Alaïa now debuts two collections a year, timed to Haute Couture Fashion Week. This speaks to the work the atelier is doing, prioritizing craft above everything else and maximizing the impact of their output. It also gives the team time to hone in on a singular idea — or, in the case of Summer-Fall 2024, a single yarn.
Alaïa staged its latest runway Paris on Tuesday, at its boutique on Rue de Marignan. In the collection notes, Mulier explained that the collection "is about simplicity and purity, about less meaning more — about intimacy, about reducing to an essence, about finding a freedom and invention in that. It is a decision, a choice, not to minimize but to focus, to expand possibilities."
That modus operandi doesn't just underline the feel of the collection: It directed how every single look was made.
Alaïa's Summer-Fall 2024 collection, Mulier continued, is crafted with a single merino wool yarn, developed over the course of a year and manipulated in ways you wouldn't even think possible — looped together into strands that create a bubble effect on dresses, woven into fine knits, bunched and fluffed together into teddy coats. The singular material focus doesn't limit the output: There are puffers and denim, different opacities and weights, draping and rigidity alike.
The shapes and silhouettes we see in the collection are rooted in the idea of a curve and a circle — "the curves of women, and circles of friends, of chosen family, an idea essential to the essence of Alaïa," as Mulier put it. This informs the roundness of knits on sleeves and skirts, the bubble fringe, the folds on pleats, even the collars on jackets.
"I always want Alaïa to be about more than the clothes," he wrote. "Because it is about more than the clothes. It's about life, about being together."
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Summer-Fall 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
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