{"id":44299,"date":"2021-09-09T07:30:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T11:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldcatholicnews.com\/an-interview-with-designer-pieter-mulier-after-his-first-alaia-show\/"},"modified":"2021-09-09T07:30:31","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T11:30:31","slug":"an-interview-with-designer-pieter-mulier-after-his-first-alaia-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldcatholicnews.com\/an-interview-with-designer-pieter-mulier-after-his-first-alaia-show\/","title":{"rendered":"An interview with designer Pieter Mulier after his first Ala\u00efa show"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This story originally appeared in i-D’s\u00a0The In Real Life issue, no. 364, Autumn 2021. Order your copy\u00a0here.<\/i><\/p>\n

Exactly four years since Azzedine Ala\u00efa\u2019s last ever fashion show in the wrought-iron courtyard of his Rue de Moussy headquarters and the streets outside the same building are lined with the bright glare of Klieg lights and rows of black folding chairs. It\u2019s a wet, balmy, early July evening, and the clouds have briefly parted for Pieter Mulier\u2019s debut for the house on the eve of the couture shows in Paris (it is not officially a part of the schedule, just as Azzedine would have wished).<\/p>\n

At one end of the single-block street is a gay bar clattering with summertime drinkers, at the other is a Monoprix supermarket, and in the middle is a sex shop displaying jockstraps in the window. The high-low ambience is only heightened by the thrumming crowds of Parisians tiptoeing to get a look-in, alongside Raf Simons and Pierpaolo Piccioli smoking outside, the dazzling arrival of Farida Khelfa and Monica Belucci, and 200 of fashion\u2019s usual suspects once again finding their bearings on the world\u2019s most fraught map: the seating plan of a real-life fashion show.<\/p>\n

Excitement is in the air. Fear, too. A lot is resting on this moment. In the three years since Azzedine Ala\u00efa\u2019s passing, the brand has reissued pieces from the archive that feel timely, a sort of greatest hits compilation, but now is the moment for evolution. It was always going to be a tough job. And the question wasn\u2019t so much who would do it, but how.<\/p>\n

How can you even begin to measure up to fashion\u2019s last true couturier? How do you renew something timeless?
How do you improve perfection?<\/p>\n

But fashion is about the now and the next. And for the older guard of fashion veterans, who knew Azzedine and sat at his dinner table, it was always going to be difficult to watch someone else sit in their beloved\u2019s chair. For a younger generation, Ala\u00efa isn\u2019t much beyond a namecheck in Clueless<\/i>. The challenge isn\u2019t so much to reinvent the wheel, but to keep it moving. Cher Horowitz was a high schooler in 1995, and even she knew Ala\u00efa was, \u201clike, a totally important designer\u201d. Today\u2019s kids need to know that, too.<\/p>\n

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At the show, on each seat lies a letter from Pieter. \u201cDear Azzedine,\u201d it reads. \u201cThis collection is intended as a tribute to thank you, to express my sincere respect and recognition for the work you did\u2026 I tried to get into your mind, but that\u2019s impossible\u2026 We met but I never had the opportunity to know you. Now, I have the opportunity to thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a North African beat begins to blast, the girls arrive with a swing in their stride, first in hooded black tailoring worn over buckled stomacher belts, and then in slinky catsuits, sculpted leathers, figure-hugging knits and draped pliss\u00e9 dresses and dove- white cotton skirts. That\u2019s putting it simply (more on the clothes later), but the point is it\u2019s the Ala\u00efa classics not seen since the 80s and 90s, their silhouettes and colours at once familiar and freshened up for 2021. It\u2019s respectful, but also a reminder of what Ala\u00efa was; a creator of sexy, assured, shape-driven clothes that make women of all ages and body types look like otherworldly sculptures, but also, and importantly, feel comfortable.<\/p>\n