Yahoo Lifestyle Olivier Saillard Explores ‘Frayed Femininity’ With Moda Povera
DOWN THE AISLE: Poetic is perhaps an overused word when describing fashion inspiration, but there are few better descriptives for fashion historian Olivier Saillard’s work for Moda Povera, always a hotly anticipated slot when it periodically appears on the Paris calendar.
For Moda Povera’s seventh edition, titled “Wedding Dresses Always End Up Single,” Saillard and his team created a collection made almost entirely from old wedding gowns sourced online and in charity shops, pulling them apart and putting them together again in new ways to create a performance accompanied by his clever texts.
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“When I bought these dresses, I could feel the disappointment of the women selling them, determined to put the moment in the past and determined to get rid of this emotionally charged garment,” Saillard wrote in his explanatory notes.
“We leave our mark on clothing, and no one takes an interest in that. I want to do that,” he told WWD after the presentation.
Some of the gowns were in such bad shape they were used to create fabric letters that were applied to certain looks to coincide with Saillard’s words, which were narrated by Rachida Brakni as he removed the looks from a succession of giant envelopes on the floor of the aisle-shaped wing of the Archives Nationales and helped model Axelle Doué to dress.
“Wedding dresses have a poetic force, especially when they have been left to sleep for some time, so cutting letters out of dresses came naturally, like a bridge between the two,” Saillard explained.
The beauty of his presentations stems from the combination of the designs with the wording chosen, with a constant flow of puns and double-entendres in the French that often defy easy translation. One look was titled “frayed femininity,” another given the description “stains of regret on the collar,” for instance.
Moda Povera’s previous presentation, in which Saillard worked with his deceased mother’s wardrobe, will be performed once more this summer at the Grand Palais.
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