>> Alright, I haven't harped on about a couture collection in quite the long while. Not because I'm not excited about age-old techniques hammered out in ensembles that compete with each other in manpower and physical time it took to make each one. I am. I'm just wary of banging on about something that I haven't a clue about nor have I seen in the flesh to REALLY blow my brains out in florid and torid language. Then there was Givenchy haute couture this season in an intimate presentation form and the presence of something that I'm hugely passionate about; backs. Or what I mean is, shots of the backs.
I've always had a pet peeve about some collections not being portrayed in their full glory because of the lack of pictures of the back. It sounds so simple and obvious to say that a 360 degree view of pieces is a complete one but in some cases, the main features of the ensemble are all concentrated in the back. For Riccardo Tisci, a literal spinal cord running through his collection meant that the focus was on the back. The cliched phrasing of 'goth' and 'dark romance' still dogs Tisci's work and perhaps he revels in those labels but I think I prefer being tame and leaving this collection to just be beautiful. Minus the skull zips, the vertebrae belts and other quasi-literal references and you're left with subtle references to Frida Kahlo's spine affliction that are worked with lace a-plenty, fringe-a-floating and control knob on sheer/opacity levels.
That said theme or no theme, I think it's safe to say that with most couture collections, it wouldn't hurt to have a back view for the mere mortals - all the better to celebrate the embroidery, beading, complex construction and cutting and all other manners of handiwork done by the atelier peeps that normally doesn't stop sharply at the sides of a silhouette.
