A lta C o u tu re - Nadine Strittmatter

Alta CoutureFotografie: JONAS UNGER Moderedaktion: KATHARINA BARESEL-BOFINGER Text: GODFREY DEENYFotografiert vom 27. bis 29. Juli 2011 in ParisHaute couture is the Mecca of fashion. No matter how many times declared dead, it’s still the ultimate tour de force ofelegance. Every six months, Paris flexes its muscle and shows that hand-made beauty will never be matched by made inChina. This July, Achtung’s fashion director and editor-in-chief, Katharina Baresel-Bofinger and Godfrey Deeny, genuflectedbefore 80,000 euros nuage dresses, Grand Dame indulgence and a season where a quintet of Italians – Giorgio Armani, PierPaolo Piccioli, Maria Grazia Chiuri, Riccardo Tisci and Giambattista Valli - took the ultimate revenge on Berlusconi’s shabbyera. They conquered fashion’s greatest peak and made the season their own with their romantic fantasies and determinationto stretch great ateliers into a new era. We call it Alta Couture! Our photographer Jonas Unger cannily filters the season’shighlights, using silver nitrate film and not a digital camera to celebrate this unprecedented Latin moment in Paris. StarringSwiss beauty Nadine Strittmatter, Unger’s portfolio captures the molto raffinato beauty of these unique clothes, instantsafter they appeared on the runway.

Black Swan, Triple Pirouette or Swan Lake were among the names Jean Paul gave to the ballet-inspired looks this season, his first show since selling a majority stake inhis house, the Catalan beauty billionaires. But being Jean Paul, his ballerinas are posh punks in tulle mini cocktails and studded motor-bike jackets. Testifying to his massattraction, over 1,000 fans hung around the couturier’s headquarters during the show paying homage to Gaultier‘s popularity and his quirky clientele’s unique aesthetic.On the right, Giambattista Valli’s roman aristocratic Big Cat silk moment.

Fashion’s greatest stage set this year will undoubtedly be the neon strip and Perspex streetlight virtual version of Place Vendome, invented by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. “Adark tale dating from 1640,” quipped Karl of the medieval chain mail like fabrics, stiff peplum pageboy tops, tight skirts and dark transparent boots that dazzled almost as muchas the glistening square catwalk. Little wonder his audience of 2,000 guests – everyone from Charlotte Casiraghi and Mario Testino to Pirates of the Caribbean beauty AstridBerges-Frisbey and Bernard Wilhelm, oohed and aahed as they entered the Grand Palais. It’s only apt that Willhelm, known for elevating provincial German culture into modern fashion,paid obeisance to his fellow countryman, the most famous designer in the world.

Pre-show paparazzi practically knock us down as we followed Giancarlo Giammetti walking Anne Hathaway in a whirl into the Valentino Haute Couture show, stagedin the splendor of the Rothschild mansion. Inside, perched on gilded Louis XVI chairs, we enter an era of Tsarist indulgence – a mesh tulle dream dress sewn withthousands of pearls that took 1,200 hours of workmanship to complete; a hammered gold coat that cost $50,000 just to make. Homage to Irfe, the 20’s fashionhouse of Prince Felix Yusupov – the assassin of Rasputin – and his wife Irina Romanov, niece of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, this was a tour de force of romantic opulence.A perfect stylistic reverie by Valentino’s Roman couturiers Pier Paolo Piccioli and Maria Grazia Chiuri. Rome only ever meets St Petersburg in Paris couture.To the right, Jean Paul Gaultier as a blood red Diaghilev, the Russian ballet impresario who died, fittingly for this season, in Venice.

Ironically, in the Italian couture season par excellence, Giorgio Armani looked east, sending out high-tech Geisha gals and Kurosawa damsels in a show entitled “Homageto Japan.” And after wowing with shining Obi belted coats worn over cocktails featuring Armani’s Japan prints of floral Mikados or abstract waves, Giorgio and CateBlanchett hosted a Japanese lunch catered by the staff of the branch of Nobu he owns in Milan. “Few other peoples would have behaved with such calm and sensitivityfaced with this ordeal,” remarked the Milanese couturier. Above, post-show Giorgio cuts a pose with Katharina and Godfrey prior to his minimalist Eastern pranzo. On theright, a Russian princess frock coat exits the Rothschild mansion in Valentino‘s Steppe chic sensation.

Riccardo Tisci named his latest Givenchy collection “Ethereal Angels.” Which made sense to our happily indulged editors after absorbing this mini selection of just10 long dresses that looked like creatures from an exotic aviary composed in gauzy tulle, floating organza, metal chains, beads, pearls and twisted feathers in shadesof ecru, chalk and cream. Paradisiacal and poised, intricate and exceptional, rarely has couture looked so beautiful. Little wonder that the industry’s inside buzz hasTisci, a designer born in Taranto, the heel of Italy, as favorite to become the new creative director of Christian Dior, France’s most famous couture brand.On the right, Valentino‘s layered Anna Karenina tulle layered column with bow tie neckline.

“Our collection is dedicated to the Russian ladies who lost everything but managed to build a life in the West,” Pier Paolo Piccioli told Achtung after the Valentino show.Above, Valentino’s Tsarist cavalry officer’s buttoned black velvet dress worn by Caroline Brasch Nielsen.Giambattista Valli, on the other hand, looked back to his native Rome. “Everyone has been asking me to create sunglasses, perfume, handbags or a diffusion line, so Iwent in the opposite direction and did couture,” joked Valli, after a splendidly ladylike show. He even included a sexy widow in lace and Spanish mantilla combo seekingpenitence in the Vatican, where several of Valli’s relatives are Papal knights. Non scherziamo. We kid you not.