Yahoo Lifestyle Alaïa Presents Its Winter 2024 Collection Via Model Selfies
Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Last summer, we saw a curious lookbook trend emerge: Instead of the traditional model-photographer set-up, brands had models capture their looks with their phones, and released their selfies. Sure, there was some professional intervention between the taking of the image and the wide release, but the resulting images had a playful, lo-fi feel to them — an elevated, well-lit version of the snaps you'd send to friends from the changing room, asking for their thoughts.
Of course, the selfie is a time-honored tradition (ask Kim K.), and phones are central to the way we experience and consume fashion: We shop on them, we take photos of our outfits on them, we save inspiration on them. At this point, we expect to see outstretched arms precariously holding phones in every runway snapshot, as showgoers try to capture a final walk or otherwise potentially viral moment. Sure, there are plenty of (valid) arguments about how these devices can take us out of a moment and distract us from experiences — but, as Alaïa argues with its Winter-Spring 2024 lookbook, released on Tuesday, selfies can capture the ephemeral in a way that's unique, special and even luxurious.
"Selfies have become a ritual at Alaïa," the brief collection notes that accompany the lookbook read. For the brand, they represent spontaneity, and are a way of preserving a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment of beauty. The Winter-Spring 2024 imagery is not only meant to create a record of that for the Alaïa woman, but also to show the collection — which is described as "combining sensuality and tactility," "an ode to women and to creation" — in a more raw, realist fashion.
It makes sense, given Alaïa's brand proposition of making the most luxurious, alluring possible version of something you wear forever. The clothes are meant to be lived in every day, not saved for special moments or preserved (and forgotten) in a closet. That's not to be conflated with being easy: Pieter Mulier challenges the Alaïa customer through fabrication and texture, leveling up the brand's legendary knits and signature body-skimming silhouettes with high cuts, sheerness and latex.
For Winter-Spring 2024 (which originally walked the runway in Paris last July), Mulier leans into this idea further in an unequivocally seductive way, cinching the waist, wrapping the legs, revealing what's underneath through translucent layers and drawing new lines with structured shoulders and tailored outerwear. (You can tell he went to the Raf Simons school of brand-building, which specializes in a specific, hard-to-articulate genre of subversive elegance.) And the models sell it, posing with a confidence you only feel when you know you're in charge of how you're seen.
Check out every single look from Alaïa's Winter-Spring 2024 collection, below.
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
Alaïa Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
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