Museums in Paris often host fashion shows, but have never devoted a month-long exhibition to a single runway collection.
That will change on Saturday when the Palais Galliera welcomes the public to experience “Love Brings Love”, the electrifying tribute show where 46 designers and homes honor Albert Elbaz, who died of COVID-19 in April 2021 .
The museum created a black-box setting reminiscent of the show in October, piping in the pounding runway soundtrack, and arranging all the clothes in mounds of heart-shaped tissue that exploded from confetti cannons during the finale.
“I hope it expresses happiness,” said Alexandre Samson, curator of the exhibition, which opens to the public on March 5 and runs through July 10. Never before has a fashion museum completely recreated a fashion show. We are now in show business!”
Samson acknowledged that mounting the exhibition in such a short period of time—and resisting the usual curatorial impulses to add retrospective elements and overlays of education—was a feat.
That said, there is plenty of material to digest, including the biographies of all the participating designers, plus an entire room dedicated to Elbaz’s fashion career, Guy Laroche at Geoffrey Beene in New York, through the tenure of Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gouache. started from , his acclaimed 14-year stint at Lanvin and then the creation of AZ Factory in 2019, his last project, a venture with Richmont that is underway.
Here visitors can discover Elbaz’s first fashion sketches, which were realized with colored markers on graph paper, while he was growing up in Israel. The budding fashion talent also named some of her designs for English and Iranian royals – her penchant for cocktail dresses and evening dresses is already present.
The biography is primarily photographic, and includes several runway looks from Krizia Top Designing Elbaz’s solo season in Milan in 2000. Samson explained that the designer used black models exclusively for that show, which just showed that he was often ahead of his time.
Fashion professionals lucky enough to have attended the “Love Brings Love” show at the Carreau du Temple venue in October 2021 will undoubtedly find new appreciation for clothes that are not enclosed in glass and can be inspected from front and back . For example, who knew Dries Van Noten tucked a pair of goggles like Elbaz wore into his hat, a piece of grosgrain ribbon? Or that Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri embroidered “I love you” on a sash in the back of her gorgeous ballgown?
Samson said the display should do a lot to overcome the “bad reputation” the fashion industry has as a nest of difficult, back-stabbing designers. Here the public learns that Elbaz was a great fashion facilitator, connecter and cheerleader, always encouraging his companions with bouquets of flowers and encouraging words.
QR codes displayed beneath each outfit unlock loads of online content that allows visitors to go behind the scenes and discover backstage videos, footage, sketches, fitting photos and other insights into the creative process.
Or they can park themselves on any of the wall-mounted benches and watch the original fashion show, which is continuously broadcast on giant screens. Projecting onto the dark walls are some choice quotes by Elbaz, such as “Fashion should be simple; life is already complicated enough.”
Samson highlighted the use of mannequins that reflected the skin color of the models who wore each look, while some of the gorgeous couture gowns — and the plus-size looks Chloe contributed — have been styled on Stockman.
Clothes by each designer are displayed alphabetically, just like in fashion shows, giving equal footing to marquee designers and brands – John Galliano, Rei Kawakubo, Giorgio Armani, Jean Paul Gaultier, Stella McCartney, Rick Owens, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga , Valentino, Versace and Gucci among them – and more up-and-coming talent in the form of Christopher John Rogers and Thebe Muggu, who will become the first guest “amigo” at AZ Factory as serial collaborators and brand pivots of freewheeling product drops.
Samson noted that Magagu was the only designer to refer to the work of Guy LaRoche in Elbaz, while most focused on the Lanvin period, remarking, “He really did his homework.” But he praised all the participants for “not wearing the dress”. They met halfway between Albert’s legacy and their own aesthetic. ,
Lanvin, now designed by Bruno Cialelli, contributed a dress based on one of Elbaz’s most iconic Lanvin designs – a billowing “parachute” gown from the spring 2008 collection, behind which Cialelli wore a portrait of the late designer. Large picture printed.
The original stands in an anteroom, with a fan inflating its volume as Elbaz originally displayed it in the Lanvin windows. Samson plastered the walls with advertising images created by photographer Steven Meisel, depicting a wide age range of women in his Sogne designs.
In the last display room, a small screen broadcasts a 2011 Lanvin video campaign that predates the TikTok and viral dance craze. It features models Karen Elson and Raquel Zimmerman, plus Elbaz introduces himself to a pitbull track.
see all,
AZ factory welcomes Thebe Magugu as the first ‘Amigo’
Albert Elbaz’s Most Memorable Quotes
Designers and celebrities pay tribute to Albert Elbaz in Paris
Originally published at Pen 18
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