Best of Haute Couture Fall 2011- Givenchy and Valentino

Runway Review- Paris Couture Fashion Week

A girl’s gotta dream….so here’s some inspiration…

For the very limited few who actually can afford to buy Haute Couture and for the actresses who gladly wear it on the red carpet, couture is a luxury that few will ever be able to feel on their bodies. So when given the opportunity to indulge in one of fashion’s greatest fantasies, it may as well be gorgeous! Some faves… – SH

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As the roster of Haute Couture designers continues to dwindle from season to season, Ricardo Tisci at Givenchy and Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli at Valentino offered two of the best collections from the recent Fall 2011 shows held earlier this month by managing to meld the expertise, techniques and handicrafts of their respective ateliers with notions of Couture’s storied past for looks that were as refreshingly modern as they were sublime.


Valentino Haute Couture Fall 2012

Valentino Haute Couture Fall 2012

Valentino Haute Couture Fall 2012

Valentino Haute Couture Fall 2012

Valentino Haute Couture Fall 2012

Valentino Haute Couture Fall 2012

After reinvigorating the house for a new generation and a younger clientele, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli worked a gilded gold and neutral color story into frothy maxi lengths for an end result that gloriously displayed their skills at updating the old-world, old-fashioned stuffiness of Valentino’s Couture past without treading on the tired toes of nostalgia. Under their watch, a black velvet dress, or a tulip skirted ivory number festooned with buttons per se, two stodgy, predictable norms from yesteryear, looked more akin to the needs of a new generation of royalty than they did vintage and were exactly right for right now.

 


Givenchy Haute Couture

Givenchy Haute Couture

 

Givenchy Haute Couture

Givenchy Haute Couture

With purity and fragility in mind, Tisci used a strict palette of ivory & gold to highlight the thousands of hours of painstaking hand beading and embroidery for looks that felt remarkably light thanks to his use of tulle, lush feather applications and seductive peek-a-boo cut-outs. — Naveed Hussain

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