Alaïa Double Take

Azzedine Alaïa Spring/Summer 2011

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Two or three evenings during the Paris ready-to-wear shows I visited Azzedine Alaïa. The first night, he was having a dinner party for his friend Jean Daniel, who writes about political affairs for Le Nouvel Observateur. The party was for Mr. Daniel’s 90th birthday and about 200 people — journalists, writers, former prime ministers, actors and a couple of models — crowded into the courtyard and atrium of Mr. Alaïa’s house in the Marais.

I went back a few nights later to see what he was working on for spring. On that evening, I arrived around 9 and went directly to the studio where he was fitting some knit dresses with his house model and the woman whose factory in Italy has been making his knit wear for the past 30 or more years. He stopped for dinner around 10:30 p.m. Everyone from the studio went down to the kitchen. When I left around midnight, Mr. Alaïa was back at work. An assistant told me a few days later he usually called it quits at 4 or 5 in the morning.

I also dropped in on a Saturday afternoon and saw a number of visitors in the boutique, including Alexander Wang and Yasmin and Simon Le Bon. Mr. Alaïa happened to be passing through the boutique on his way back to the studio (he had a black python skirt in his hand) and Mr. Le Bon gave him a big bear hug.

“You haven’t changed at all,” Mr. Le Bon said.

Mr. Alaïa works in small, plodding, exact ways to perform miracles. This is a season of transparent fashion (haven’t you heard?), and Mr. Alaïa’s idea was to create a micro-dot lace sheath in white or black that could be worn over a lightweight, stretchy tube top and skirt in colors like coral or melon. Mr. Alaïa used the lace for several other styles, including a flared skirt, which he lined with a not-too-bright color.

You don’t really see much through the lace, or not as much as you might expect when you see a dress on the hanger. Anyway, it’s hard to beat the fit and proportions of a short-sleeve black lace dress, no matter what you end up putting under it. The seams went expertly down the back of the dress and then a couple of pleats sort of kicked out below the rear. What you notice, more than the see-though element, is just how right the dress looks.

Mr. Alaïa also used paper-thin black leather and python this season. He made some gathered skirts, jackets and notched vests with the leather, but he also combined the materials with a sheer fabric so that the pleats of a python skirt were both solid and transparent. It must feel like nothing to wear.

The collection also included some refined knit dresses, in tank styles, and skirts with subtle lacey effects. Many of the fabrics are Japanese, with a crispness that worked well for Mr. Alaïa’s culottes. I watched him fit a pair in faded salmon-red cotton. They are actually combined with an overskirt that is open at the back, so you can slide your hands in the pockets of the culottes.

His new shoes and sandals—some of which climb up the calf like a trellis—have rounded edges and lace details.