Angels are part of the Christmas iconography, but so are feathered tutus, if you think about famous ballets such as "Swan Lake" that have entered the Christmas tradition.
There have been some Pre-Fall 18 collections that featured designs incorporating feathers. As you may remember from a previous post, Chanel's 15th Métiers d'Art Collection included for example Chanel's classic tweed suits reinvented with a striped motif created in tiny feathers.
The same motif was repeated in black and white mini-dresses in which the classic sailor's collar was transformed into a plunging neckline. In all these cases the feathers were hand-dyed and sewn onto the fabric.
Christelle Kocher's continued in her Pre-Fall collection the football theme that she had explored in Koché's S/S 18 show and that was inspired by a multi-year agreement with the Paris Saint-Germain soccer club. She expanded it with logo tracksuits and collaged asymmetric polo dresses.
Yet she also added to the collection a white top covered in white feathers and sprayed with graffiti in black paint for a urban touch and a hooded jacked covered in multi-coloured feathers. Kocher elevated in this way the uniforms of the street to a form of art.
Kocher is also the artistic director of Maison Lemarié, owned by Chanel and known for its fabric flowers and feathered decorative elements (the maison is among the last ones representing the art of the plumassier), so it is natural for her to use this material.
Maybe there will be further references to feathers in new collections next year, but where does this inspiration come from – arty angel wings or tutus like the one designed by Léon Bakst and donned by Anna Pavlova in 1905 as the Dying Swan?
Who knows, but feathers were already a trend in 1860, as proved by this white-on-white Latvian coat from the Costume Institute at the Met Museum archives.
The texture of this coat was formed by eiderdown feathers in round bundles secured with thread, the coat was then decorated with untethered eiderdown used as trim.
Angels or ballet costumes then? This fashion dilemma may not be easily solved, but it is interesting to consider how classic decorative elements such as feathers have been recently incorporated in more modern and even urban designs.
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