You know I like to write about things that inspire me, that have a resonance into my art work or just simply pleasing my eye. I can call myself an aesthete with a permanent hunger of images and sounds. Never mind the brand, the name, the signature, what matters is the experience and as the consumption society evolves we are much more attentive to intemporality, to real knowhow, we need things that last and can become part of our identity.
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Gorges Chakra, portrait by Marco Tassini |
When I first encounter Georges Chakra’s work, I saw the univers of an artist, a painter, an illustrator bringing all his talents in fashion design. His signature is structured, intense, intricate, filled with sumptuous materials and details.
For the 2019-2020 collection he offers us Golden Age. Is he talking only of his Hollywoodean inspiration or, humbly acknowledging his apogee collection? The love story between him and America started in 2006, when he was featured in The Devil Wears Prada. Ever since, internationally acclaimed, Chakra’s woman never stoped to reinvent herself in timeless couture.
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Now let yourself be guided by his muses. Through this dresses, great classics revisited, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, Olivia de Haviland, Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn will take you to the City of Angels. The woman depicted by Georges Chakra is emancipated.
“For once I wanted to make unforgettable dresses, not something of légèreté. This is quite contradictory to what I have done before. The collection has density, it belongs to a star, more sophisticated, more detailed.”
Where can we draw the thin line between cinema and fashion, both arts inspired one another during decades. “I admire personalities from the 7th art, I am astonished how humble they are”. This collection is a flamboyant hommage to Hollywood’s Golden Age.* Chakra embodies a movie director and each dress is made for a major role.
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“ I underlined the shoulders, in the smoking for example. The structure of dresses is no longer airy but rather present, we fill it on the podium, it has a presence, it is sculptural.”
Long elegant dresses, midlength structured shapes, asymmetrical constructions, corsets, trains, big shivering crystals. The fabrics overlay, pleated and embroidered tulle on silk crepe, rhodoid tripes, feather and sequences. Lace is one of the main elements here, yet so rare in his other collections.
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“I elaborated the lace, with feathers, with pearls, all kinds of embroidery, even very simple.There are shiny materials, gradient from silver to white for example. I used the micro-mosaic, a new texture that gives a very Hollywood effect. I worked with sequence drawings, big drawing patters in silver or gold. I used fake fur, also embroidered. And for once the hand painted fabric is present only in the wedding dress.”
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The collection is graphic, emanating a certain power with its architectural shapes and contrasting colours. We could talk about a telegenic value, about a temporal quest, today and the eternal Hollywood style, and most certainly about tomorrow because, this winter collection is sophistication, a style that can forget the season, even the decade.
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Photography by Marco Tassini, model Nicola Matear, flowers by Maison Lachaume |
“when you wear a dress you need to feel like a star, like living in an outer world. It is not a brand, not a need to shine, it may be the beautiful fabric, the perfect finition, maybe even a certain extravagance, the elegance”
By Alexandra Mas
To find out more about the artist and her inspirations follow her @alexandramas_artist
