Longing
By CATHY HORYN
Published: February 15, 2004
You almost can't believe your eyes. Fashion pours out of every medium today -- television, magazines, the Internet, art lectures. If things keep going at this rate, someday we'll drive up to one of those modern gas pumps with the built-in TV set, and instead of watching a report on the plight of the timber wolf, we'll see the latest Versace show. The trouble, of course, with all this overexposure, is that it has dimmed our visual sense. We've lost the capacity, if not the will, to distinguish the truly amazing from the merely beautiful. Well, that's what haute couture exists for. Until you've seen an haute-couture dress, you haven't seen anything. Although the number of influential Paris houses has dwindled to a handful, there has been no slackening in creativity. Since the entire raison d'etre of couture is to continue to make things by hand in spite of the costs, the spring collections rose to the challenge -- Christian Lacroix with his French pastry layers, Karl Lagerfeld with his blouses of voluptuous tulle. The next time you eye an actress on the red carpet, ask yourself: Is her dress milquetoast or mille-feuille?
And as if to prove that couture has not become a crepey old widow without interest, the collections this season produced a real trend: the super-elongated line. Evident at Chanel in Lagerfeld's sinewy skirts and Jean Paul Gaultier's chinoiserie silks, it reaches its extreme at Dior, where John Galliano draws on ancient Egypt and 1950's fashion to create severe verticality. Corsets help.
It stands to reason that at a time when everything is easily obtainable, something should remain beyond our reach. And it seems right and even dignified that this object of desire evoke a more heightened response, one out of favor with marketers of ''aspirational'' luxury. The word that comes to mind is longing, pure longing
Thanks for posting this, Lena! The pictures are wonderful. It made the couture outfits even more gorgeous! Thanks again! 
tiiu? wow she looks great here , thanks igni 
tomorrow,
Beautiful.
you are most welcome guys, it really is a great editorial, jean paul gould rules 
