The digital format of the Haute Couture week in Paris may be awkward for those ones who usually attend the shows in person, but it may open wide the doors of the high fashion world to a larger number of fashion fans and prove beneficial to less known designers. Among them there is Maurizio Galante, a very talented Italian fashion, costume and interior designer whose refined and elegant collections can usually only be appreciated by critics and customers.
For this edition of Haute Couture Week Galante showcased his collection with a short film available also on YouTube, entitled "A promise". Inspired by the night, the collection in tones of purple, mauve, blue and black, was shot in the studio of the couturier.
Starring Somalian model Amalia Vairelli, muse to Yves Saint Laurent, the collection features voluminous capes and kaftans with pleated, folded and layered motifs, a textile vocabulary that galante speaks fluently and that is partially reminiscent of Roberto Capucci.
The main protagonists of the film are the designs: as the model goes down the staircase, a narrative of fabrics unravels and we see her in a different design as she walks down from one floor to the next.
There is emphasis on sculpturally perfect volumes and architectural shapes (it is worth remembering that it took over 500 hours to make some of these designs) that, rather than caging the body like more structured and classic Haute Couture gowns, allow the wearer to move freely.
We see Vairelli wearing a grid-like tunic, then a design in which swirls of fabric form infinite roses and finally a grand and voluminous gown in a beautiful shade of purple-mauve.
The collection pays homage to those moments of anticipation that precede a special encounter or event, those instants during which everything seems possible, while inviting us to consider the symbolism behind the purple, lilac, violet, ink and black and blue nuances.
The main colour chosen for this collection is indeed very symbolic: purple has long been associated with royalty (originally because Phoenician purple dye was extremely expensive in antiquity), but also with magic and mystery, penitence (in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic liturgy), mourning, vanity, extravagance, individualism and ambiguity (it is made by combining two primary colours, so it is seen as uncertain and equivocal).
While it is a colour that occurs the least frequently in nature, purple was originally made using something that came from nature, the famous murex purple extracted from molluscs, while in Scotland purple dyes were made with lichen dyes such as orchil.
Purple was the first colour to be synthesized: in 1856, a British chemistry student named William Henry Perkin produced the first synthetic aniline dye, a purple shade called mauveine, shortened simply to mauve. It took its name from the mallow flower, which is the same color. A series of modern industrial dyes followed and they completely transformed both the chemical industry and fashion. This progression from natural to synthetic dyes is almost mirrored in this collection that features gowns in natural materials such as silk and cotton juxtaposed to synthetic materials like transparent vinyl strips.
Art-wise, purple was popular with the pre-Raphaelite painters and it was also the favourite colour of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, who often included in his paintings sensual purples and violets. Associated with social change, it was one of the colours of the Women's Suffrage movement for the right to vote for women in the early decades of the century.
It is possible to explore this collection from different points of view, themes, ideas and concepts, but let's hope that its main purpose will be just one - allowing Galante to reach out to a wider audience.
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