Optically modern or elegantly pleated?

In a previous post a few days ago I briefly analysed the arty inspirations behind Alexander McQueen’s S/S 2010 menswear collection. The same ballpoint pen scribbles and paint splashes and splotches the designer applied to his men’s garments, reappeared also in his Resort 2010 collection.

McQueen also applied Victor Vasarely’s optical prints to pagoda shouldered jackets, dresses and leggings in bright/red blue and yellow/black.

The fine tract of M.C. Escher's illustrations seemed instead to be applied to cobweb-like leggings and to the overlay of a yellow dress.

Rodolfo Paglialunga spent the last few months studying Madeleine Vionnet’s history and archive.

Paglialunga, who worked for over a decade with Miuccia Prada, became a few months ago the new creative director of the historical French maison, recently bought by Italian entrepreneur Matteo Marzotto.

Designers who previously worked for the maison or who were inspired by Vionnet in their collections made one major mistake: they stopped at the draped and pleated motifs, producing perfectly looking Grecian style tunics.

Yet Vionnet was more than just pleats, the key to her dresses and garments was in fact geometry.

She indeed conceived her dresses as flat designs that became three-dimensional once they were worn. Paglialunga did the same in Vionnet's Cruise collection and, while his tunics and dresses displayed a complete knowledge of the pleated techniques, the flat cut he applied to the fabric showed he tried to achieve what Vionnet had successfully managed to do, allowing the fabric to fall freely on the body in a harmonious way.

Perfect details such as the cut out motifs on the shoulders helped the fabric to flow fluidly on the body and on the arms and the designer carefully studied the proportions and the movement of the fabric on the body.