un moment avec Lee
Paris, France
Capturing the mystery of elegant aristocratic women as the subject of decadent portraiture, Rami Al Ali’s Summer 2012 Haute Couture collection draws out their essence and turns it into exquisite fashion. Growing in his global reputation, Ali has been producing his collection in an Atelier in Dubai since 2001. It is his goal to showcase the capabilities of the craftsmen, and to bring those traditional techniques into a new era of modern application. Each dress becomes a workshop for a specific embroidery or technique, like individuals in gold leaf gilded frames in a gallery.
Poetic colors in musky blue, pink and ivory, were the primary palette set off by an anthracite grey and sparkling black. Beading, weaving, layering, shaping, each dress was more intricately detailed than the next. A bodice embroidered like a henna body tattoo, a trailing hem of thousands of tiny tiles of silk creating a fringe that disappeared into the soft beaded skirt. laser cur leather that looped in ever-longer extensions creating a skirt like a spiral seashell. A paneled dress, in silk with the edges bordered in crystals, draped down the front and back in generous tiers. Caught in a band at the waist, the lines continue down and pool in its cool blueness on the floor. This image of luxurious excess was also felt in delicate layers of tulle falling from a band set discretely off the shoulder of one gown, soft like a cloud, and embroidered with patchwork on the top, and fading away to nothing.
The treatments evoke a memory of art forms for the designer, trained in fine arts, like the textures of tapestry and mosaic. His artful eye is clear when you get lost in the details of one single gown. A composition so fully cared for from every point of view, the models did one thing the portraits that inspired the gowns could not do: change positions, showing off each angle of the dress that got more enticing with every turn. It is no wonder Ali’s international acclaim is growing. In a time when cultural borders are breaking down, it is all the more important to have designers like Ali who share their work abroad. The first hand access, in a context so sacredly dedicated to the savoir faire of heritage ateliers, it is the perfect venue to showcase this designer’s stand out collection.
- Lee Anderson, Parisian Correspondent
Designer website: www.ramialali.com
