Not directly related to Ayo Edebiri, who looks shy and endearing, or to Mathieu Blazy, whose degree of involvement in this is to me still ambiguous, but the decadence of French Couture as an art is unfortunately very evident these days.
Jerry Hall looks imperial in that gown from 1986, but I thought: maybe it is just the angle of the picture.
No. I was looking at more pictures and in all of them you can appreciate that the froncé of the bustier has a sense and a purpose, that it even creates smoothly a volume on the side, with the help of the fabric, and thanks to all of that you have a strong silhouette, different textures, precious details.
This red gown from Venice looks flat, frumpy, amateurish and uninteresting.
Ditto for Jonathan's dress from yesterday: unflattering, clumsy, hurried, unfinished.
Dior and Chanel used to be the nec plus ultra doing this and now they seem student projects.
The problem, I imagine, is only partially related to the artistic directors.
Raf was also this type of artsy intellectual designer and look at the Sterling Ruby dresses from his first Dior show. You could find them uneasy on the eye (or plain ugly) but their construction was spectacular.
So to me the problem affects the ateliers themselves, with traditions and savoir-faire slowly getting lost.
The fact that Dior is outsourcing from India the embroideries for Haute-Couture level pieces is very eloquent of the lack of craftmanship in France.