Pieter Mulier revived the Parisian label in New York, blending American sportswear influences with a parade of supermodels
Showing this Winter-Spring Alaïa collection in New York came about for two reasons: opportunity, and obsession. The opportunity to stage a show in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; and an obsession with the idea of American beauty.
For me, American beauty means freedom, of body and of spirit. A simplicity, a modernity and directness, a purity. And both for Alaïa and myself, America is a home away from home. I lived and worked in New York for three years. It helped shape who I am today. And, in the 1980s, for Azzedine Alaïa, it was a city where his clothes and philosophy of design were embraced, where he opened his first store. In 1982, he showed in New York for the first time; in 2000, Alaïa pieces were placed in conversation with works by Andy Warhol at the Guggenheim Museum's temporary space in SoHo - an exchange of art and fashion that was unprecedented.
This season, we were offered the chance to show in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum - an act of generosity, a creative exchange with kindred spirits. It is the first time a fashion collection has been shown in the museum's rotunda.
The collection itself has been shaped, inherently, by that idea - by showing in an art museum, in America. There is a sense of American sportswear, its ease and practicality. There are traces of the work of American fashion greats - Adrian, Halston, Charles James, Claire McCardell. American beauty, again. There is also a sculptural aspect, born from Azzedine’s obsessions, and my own.
This collection is about honoring tradition alongside modernity. It is a celebration of an American ideology of dress, and through that of a spirit that can unite New York and Paris - of the body in motion, liberated. As Alaïa always has been.
