Co-curated by the late designer, Design Museum show avoids the pomp of a retrospective
He was 5 ft 3 (1.6 metres), but the mannequins wearing his dresses at the Design Museum in London are 6 ft 11 without high heels. Visitors to Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier, which opens on Thursday, are met by a phalanx of seven such Amazons, each dressed in the late designer’s signature leopard print and black.
The exaggerated height of the mannequins amplifies what Alaïa’s clothes have always done, which is to make women look extraordinary. “No other dress can make a woman look and feel as good as an Alaïa dress because it cinches the body perfectly,” as Naomi Campbell put it. Dominated by 60 outfits hung unfettered on these towering transparent bodies, this exhibition is a simple appreciation of the technical brilliance of a designer’s hands-on artistry. But the clothes have a sensual power that lifts the show above dry academic examination. Invited to admire the engineering of a floor-length black gown with thick gold zips snaking around its hourglass curves, the visitor’s mind is drawn to the effect such a dress would have when it walked into a room.
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