It’s a big month for the brilliant fashion designer Azzedine Alaia, who sadly passed away in 2017. This month, there are two major Alaia exhibitions, one at his foundation and gallery in the Marais, and the other at the Palais Galliera.
At the Fondation Azzedine Alaia, Alaia/Gres. Beyond Fashion, explores the similarities in the designs of Alaia and the couturier Madame Gres. Although they lived in different time periods and never met, they both studied and wanted to be sculptors, which strongly inspired their clothing designs. They strived to elevate, drape, and sculpt the female form.
Madame Gres, born Germaine Émilie Krebs in Paris in 1903 and died in 1993, was notoriously private. She spent most of her life in her atelier draping gorgeous gowns in silk jersey, inspired by the Greco-Roman period.
Azzedine Alaia, born in 1935 and raised in Tunisia, was a dressmaker’s assistant after he graduated from the Tunis Institute of Fine Arts. He moved to Paris in the 1950s and worked for various fashion houses, including Dior, Guy Laroche, and Thierry Mugler. In 1980 he opened his own studio, in the then-rundown Marais. He rose to fame in the late 1980s/early 1990s, designing sexy, form-fitting dresses and gowns worn by Raquel Welch, Naomi Campbell, Grace Jones, Tina Turner, and Madonna.
The exhibition displays the designers side by side, and it was fun trying to guess which ones were Alaia and which were Madame Gres.
Fondation Azzedine Alaia also has a lovely café in the courtyard, serving drinks and light food during the day, and there’s also a bookshop with fashion and design books and magazines.
Alaia/Gres. Beyond Fashion
Until February 2, 2024
18 Rue de la Verrerie, 75004
https://fondationazzedinealaia.org/en/
Madame Gres
The best thing about the Palais Galliera is it's across the street from my favorite Paris museum BUILDING. The wonderful Art Deco Palais de Tokyo with Paris' City Museum of Modern Art.
(LOVE your column!!!!!)
Posted by: Barry Goldsmith | September 21, 2023 at 03:48 PM