The title of the exhibition says it all: “Alaïa.” No extra words of puffery, not even his first name (Azzedine). Just his surname, all vowels and one rising consonant, a word people have been saying in Paris for 35 years with respect, love and kinship: uh-LIE-aah.
On Wednesday night, the family of Alaïa turned out for the opening of a retrospective at the Palais Galliera, Paris’s newly revamped fashion museum in the 16th Arrondissement. There were hundreds if not thousands. At 8 p.m., the line extended down the block from the entrance, and there were easily more people inside the museum and out in its garden.
During the last 15 years, I’ve been to many informal dinners in Mr. Alaïa’s kitchen and some larger parties in his show space (also part of his home), and it makes no difference: the man enjoys an extraordinary relationship to Paris. The Tunisian-born couturier, 73, has lived here 54 years.
Coming in the door, I saw Joe McKenna, the stylist, who typically stays at Mr. Alaïa’s house when he’s in town, and who flew in from New York just for the evening; the designer Marc Newson and his wife, Charlotte Stockdale; the editor Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele, who in the early ’80s was among the very first editors to wear Mr. Alaïa’s clothes and bring attention to his revolutionary designs; the retailer Carla Sozzani, who has been as close as a sister to the designer.
On the way out, I ran into Sidney Toledano, the chief executive of Dior, and Yves Carcelle, the former chief executive of Louis Vuitton. That’s just a smattering of the people who were at the opening. Of course, there were models dressed in their Alaïas.
“There is no sense of present or future in Azzedine’s work,” Olivier Saillard, the museum’s director and the curator of the exhibition, said earlier in the day on a tour of the show. That’s why you can look at the 74 garments on display (with another half-dozen or so at the Musée d’Art Moderne across from the Galliera), and nothing looks out of date. Everything is timeless: the black leather and metal pieces from the early ’80s, the hooded, bias-cut knit halter dress worn by Grace Jones, the African-inspired dresses made of raffia fringe and shells, the magnificent tailored garments from different decades.
“With Azzedine, it’s not about style,” Mr. Saillard said. “Rather, it’s about the end.” He means that Mr. Alaïa is only interested in the result he wants to achieve with a particular fabric or technique, whereas many other designers are preoccupied with style. It just so happens that there is a continuity in his designs that is recognizably Alaïa, in proportion, balance, feminine silhouette. There is another through line in Mr. Alaïa’s clothes, and it’s clear to see in this powerful and simply staged exhibition. “There is the feeling of the history of Paris couture in his clothes,” Mr. Saillard said. You see his regard for Madame Grès in the draped dresses, including one with a metal mesh back, and for Balenciaga in the tailoring. Of course, the results are indelibly Alaïa.
Pausing in front of a group of dresses in layered mousseline, Mr. McKenna, who has been working on a documentary about Mr. Alaïa (the raw footage is now with Bruce Weber’s film editor), pointed to one with a light dusting of silver beads under the black top layer. “It seems to move when you walk,” he said of the sparkles. Everyone who has ever been in the Alaïa studio probably has a story to tell about a dress. This one, Mr. McKenna said, was inspired by “Citizen Kane,” and the scene with the snow globe.
The exhibition runs through Jan. 26, 2014.
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