Rochas is gunning for a comeback beneath the inventive path of Alessandro Vigilante. There’s a variety of work to do right here—in spite of everything, Rochas is greatest recognized for fragrances as of late—so logically sufficient the designer began again at sq. one, draping a salon within the Hôtel d’Évreux in hibiscus pink and rustling up some Marcel Rochas signatures like squared jacket necklines, a peplum or an hourglass jacket to jog the style world’s reminiscence. Requested to explain what Rochas ought to imply right this moment, Vigilante replied “magnificence, simplicity and youth,” and he piled on a variety of fantasy whereas he was at it, however mercifully stopped wanting bare dressing.

The purpose of departure was a 1939 {photograph} by Carlo Mollino entitled “Fairytales for Adults,” which reveals a mannequin stepping out of a wardrobe in a satin robe. Behind her, one divines a closet stuffed not simply with garments, but additionally with curios. Paying homage to these occasions, Vigilante picked out French lace with a scalloped Artwork Deco motif, fashioning it into little slip attire in champagne beige or black adorned with lacy ribbons whose tails had been left to flutter because the wearer moved (these lace stockings had been really an archival re-creation). Backstage, the moodboard cited the indomitable Diana Vreeland, who proclaimed “the attention has to journey.” And so it did right here, alighting on variously intelligent and inconceivable concepts. Along with these slip attire, a number of seems made a case for dressed-down fancy, for instance in margarita inexperienced cargo pants reduce in duchesse satin, or a two-tiered duchesse skirt in petrol blue paired with a lighter blue wool cardigan. Lots of the materials, resembling a chocolate brocade, technical, froissé or dévoré velvet, and emerald satin, had been lush. Most equipment and a few of the garments—a blanket wrap, a skirt sewn with curlicued silver ribbons—hinted at a sly wit and a style for surrealism. However the Rochas lady has been everywhere in the map of late and Vigilante comes backed by large ambitions. Let’s see what materializes in that closet every time she decides to step out of the boudoir.