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Nicolas Di Felice’s spotlight for Jean Paul Gaultier Couture: a palimpsest of constructive intricacy

Written by Anna Johnson


You could hear a pin drop in Jean Paul Gaultier’s Parisian headquarters for Nicolas Di Felice’s spotlight as designer for Haute Couture.

 

A violin chord slices the air as a dark spectral figure glides onto Di Felice’s runway. The model is shrouded by a black trench coat. Her visage is veiled in black, lapels climbing up past her ears. Resembling a funeral procession, the models stalk the runway like enchanted black widows, necklines blending into balaclavas.

 

The fabric visors gradually lower, thick leathers and opulent silks shifting to sheer lace. Cut-outs reveal slivers of the models’ backs and waists. A pocket is selectively sewn onto the upper thigh, just brushing the pelvis. It is suggestive, subtle, dancing a delicate line between sensitive and sexy.

 

The gaze is drawn to Di Felice’s hook-and-eye fasteners, alluding to the prefix to undressing in our most intimate moments. Understated, but hard to miss- one look used 42,000.

 

The metaphorical hook-and-eye combining the looks was the idea of uncovering one’s self. Based on the vision of a newcomer in Paris, it begins by hiding the body and face behind gabardine de soie, gazar and taffeta, protecting the wearer from being perceived. The garments peel themselves off in layers as if independently, forcing the body to be laid bare.

 

The collection softens as the colour palette lightens from black, to blue, to silver, to nude. A female voice uttering “a new way” pulses through the room.

 

Di Felice flexes his futuristic thumbprint from look 13 onward, marrying Jean Paul Gaultier’s signature corset motif with Di Felice’s penchant for sexy space-age minimalism via figure-hugging silhouettes, asymmetric collars and deconstructed sleeves, which in one instance shrugged off epaulettes attached to a high-neck, constructed military-style corset in nude.

 

Paris’ footprints are treaded all over, not only due to the elegance and integrity of the Couture designs. Look 9’s square, rigid neckline teases a memory of police riot shields, so commonplace in the city’s everyday landscape it does not prompt so much as an eyelid bat from the locals.

 

Nevertheless presented in a chic silhouette, perhaps this is a defining feature of Paris to Di Felice, as the city’s feisty political spirit remains its beating heart.

 

To Belgium-born Di Felice, Gaultier represented Paris. He told Vogue ‘if I have one image [of what Gaultier has done] it’s ‘I’m coming to Paris to be myself.’’

 

His penultimate dress boasts a complete shedding of skins. The construction is so intricate that it takes a second glance to realise it is made purely of hook-and-eyes.

 

In this expert example of constructive craftsmanship, we see Di Felice’s abilities laid bare for us.

 

He has outdone himself.




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