slipring

Lebanese designer Dany Atrache unveiled his spring-summer 2014 collection in a quiet showroom in Paris during haute couture fashion week, which took place over the past week. The collection marked Atrache’s 10th year showing in the French capital. In the same spirit as his Lebanese kin, Atrache’s dresses combined sheer sheaths with appliqué, sequin and crystal embellishment.Atrache, whose showroom is located in central Beirut in Saifi Village,Discount 2014 Aqua Nude Tulle Beaded Crystal Long Sleeve Short Sheath Evening Prom Dresses her now defunct menswear range,and breastfeeding her and smelling her baby smell Wholesale Cheap Taffeta strapless Embroidery beaded Quinceanera Dresses DE2130. told The Daily Star this particular collection channeled romanticism through lots of lace transparency and pastels with a smattering of black evening wear.“I did this romantic style with lots of transparency, chiffon and silk materials,” he said.The couture collection relied heavily on floral motifs, but the most interesting pieces were those that deviated from that delicate floral formula. For example, a white cocktail dress had a subtle pattern of abstract stones embroidered into the sheer chiffon.In another cocktail dress, he paired a long-sleeved sequin studded top with a skirt of silvery scales made from rhodoid metallic plastic. Each season, Atrache incorporates what he called a fantasy material and this year,Discount Spandex High neck collar Beaded Crystal Sheath Evening/Pageant Dresses I took a year out to reassess what I wanted to do, rhodoid was built into several skirts and bodices to give the look of metal.So what are we witnessing right now? Is it an especially energetic death-rattle? Or is it possible – just maybe – that haute couture is transforming, like those infernal butterflies that peppered the catwalk of Jean Paul Gaultier, from one state of being to another? Maybe. But it’s not so much emerging from a chrysalis as recreating itself from the inside out. Haute couture is finally being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. 

The chief proponents booting couture’s well-clad derrière are an old master and a new pretender: Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel and Raf Simons at Dior. The striking thing this season was their similarity. The houses are fierce rivals, even if the designers aren’t (case in point: Karl Lagerfeld wore a jacket from Raf Simons’ eponymous menswear line to take his bow at Chanel). More to the point, their aesthetics are polar opposites. Coco Chanel herself witheringly stated that “Dior doesn’t dress women. He upholsters them”, among many other barbed comments. Dior himself was an admirer of Chanel, but his New Look turned her aesthetic edicts on their head. Out with jersey simplicity, in with taffeta-lined, cinched-waist extravagance.