Haute Couture's Dialogue with Architecture and Interior Design

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I always find exciting writing about Stéphane Rolland’s haute couture collections because they usually allow you to touch upon interesting topics such as art and architecture, themes that often appear on this blog in connection with fashion.

For the Spring/Summer 2010 season Rolland moved from a very interesting inspiration, Daniel Widrig’s work.

If you are familiar with the work of this London-based architect you may remember how Widrig has designed products, furniture, sculptures and objects all characterised by an interesting experimental potential.

Indeed there is always a sort of three dimensional quality in Widrig’s works and a simple object like a vase can be transformed through fluid architectural shapes into something much more similar to a spaceship than to a simple interior design object.

Though the cut or the shoulders of particular designs in Rolland's collection called to mind elongated buildings and architectural structures, it was in the surfaces that the designer elaborated at its best his main inspiration.

Black, gold and silver stains that seemed to have the consistency of rubber were splashed along the hemline, neckline or hips of skirt suits, tops and dresses, creating unusual effects, especially in those designs characterised by the most fluid silhouettes.

Apparently these effects were created thanks to the help of a chemist, who allowed Rolland to develop a soft of lacquered paint.

Another interesting effect was achieved with elements of laser-cut black and white resin appliquéd in geometrical patterns all over dresses, shoulders or hemlines.

Almost wrapping the body of the models, coiling around the neckline or the sleeves or designing on the garments skeleton-like structures, such elements seemed to recreate wearable versions of Widrig’s sculptures, especially in the final design, a long white dress in which the elements recreates a sort of dynamic domino-like effect, resulting in a creation that perfectly synthesised in itself the relationship between fashion design and architecture and model and object.

Rolland’s designs turned in this way into load-bearing structures, armours in which different volumes and surfaces were juxtaposed.

The designer investigated surfaces through a simple technique, repetition, analysing the possibilities that cutting and folding the fabric into specific ways and applying to it lacquered elements could offer him.

But while Rolland played with architectures, Roger Vivier’s imaginative creative director Bruno Frisoni focused on art and interior design.

Frisoni infused references to Modernism, Surrealism and Art Deco into his shoes and bags, designing feathered unicorn heels complete with horns and extremely ornate bags that, with their branch motifs, flowers and dragons looked like the extravagant synthesis between the finest and most exquisite Chinese cabinets and the most iconic pieces by French architect and interior designer Jacques Adnet.

The shoes also called to mind, especially in their silhouettes and surfaces, the furniture designed by Eileen Gray for the legendary Rue de Lota apartment, and Jean-Michel Frank’s most exquisite pieces.

I just wish there could be further connections and "dialogues" between architecture, interior design and fashion also in the ready-to-wear collections as they would definitely make the designs more interesting and maybe even spark interesting collaborations between contemporary fashion designers, architects and interior designers.