Azzedine Alaïa Exhibit Highlights Madame Grès as Kindred Spirit
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IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATION: An upcoming exhibition at the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa will highlight the parallels between the late Tunisian designer’s work and the sculptural drapery of Madame Grès, whose designs he extensively collected.
Although the two likely never met, the show titled “Alaïa/Grès, Beyond Fashion,” running from Sept. 11 to Feb. 11, 2024, seeks to create a dialogue between these kindred spirits who pursued proportion, precise cuts and letting their chosen fabrics — jersey for Grès, knitwear for Alaïa — influence deeply the shape of the styles they created.
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Curated by Association Azzedine Alaïa director Olivier Saillard, the exhibition is to recount the way each used their chosen techniques and mostly monochromatic palettes to great effect, creating sculptural designs for daytime or evening, through a total of 60 designs, grouped by cutting technique, fabric combination or colors.
Exhibits will include a ’60s column gown with a daring open back and a 1975 off-the-shoulder finely pleated green couture dress, both by Grès, as well as a short white pleated Alaïa dress from spring 1991 and a deep red couture gown with dense pleating and chainmail straps and bodice from his summer 1991 couture collection.
Known as a designer’s designer, Grès had her heyday in the 1930s to ’50s; had a revival in the ’70s with Yves Saint Laurent and Issey Miyake among advocates of her work, and counted Marlene Dietrich, the Duchess of Windsor, Grace Kelly and Paloma Picasso among her fans.
Alaïa’s personal couture collection, densely packed in the basement of his Rue de Moussy headquarters and discovered following his passing in 2017, included some 700 Grès designs.
The show will form a tandem of sorts with the “Azzedine Alaïa, couturier collectionneur” (“Azzedine Alaïa: Couturier, collector”), an exhibition also curated by Saillard that will run at Paris’ Palais Galliera fashion museum from Sept. 27 until Jan. 21, 2024.
The Palais Galliera exhibition will delve further into the vast archive amassed by the late Tunisian designer, with 150 silhouettes from the likes of Madeleine Vionnet, Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Patou, as well as more contemporary designs by Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano, among others.
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