^^^ Farida, Yasmeen, Veronica Webb, Yasmin Le Bon, Gail Elliot, Christy, Beverly Peele, Naomi… These are the women I always associate with Alaia. I get what they’re so desperately attempting with Mona, but they’re failing in every way. She doesn’t possess the effortless grace and elegance, the effervescence, the carefree radiance of these women when they walked for Aliaia and were photographed in his designs. But more than such lessers now being the faces of Alaia, the fashions are just plain cheap-looking: Overwrought, graceless, over-burdened, over-compensating, and downright unflattering… And along with the campaign imagery, it all just resemble a CeCe Peniston video. Giles' shots of women wearing OG Alaia for Elle were light, sensual, easygoing, and effortlessly radiant-- with every piece of clothing looking so refined.
(Can’t stress this enough: can you just imagine Alexandre Vauthier interpreting Alain’s trenchcoats/trench dresses in real croc; voluminous shearling wrap coats; feathery dresses; and those playful, lacey tennis dresses… while seamlessly adding his very own distinct design vocabulary to Alaia's, without it looking like a mangled, heavy mess like it is in Pieter’s heavy hands..??? ...And Alique with her understanding of lightless and smoulder, shooting the campaign...)