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“What is couture in 2019?” was the question on Olivier Rousteing’s mind as he designed and prepared his first collection this past January for Balmain, a Parisian couture house that had not shown haute couture in 17 years. Rousteing’s extravagant propositions with outsized proportions – think circle hard leather skirt, asymmetrical jacket-dress, silver painted feathered suit, and arrays of pearls beaded onto shredded denim - affirmed his ebullient belief in how these traditional crafts are totally relevant in today’s environment and in the service of an unfettered platform to benefit both the creative expressions and experimentations, as well as the commercial enterprises. This fundamental question of the relevancy of couture, especially today, has been posed so often since January 2002 when Yves Saint Laurent announced the closure of his couture operations. Since then, many of the French houses on the original roster of the official calendar had quietly ceased the business of couture. However the resilience of couture – surviving the deep crisis years and now expanding globally - is remarkable.

At the spring-summer 2019 couture shows in Paris this January, the heritage of crafts was the unheralded hero. The ‘savoir fair’ work performed by the specialized skilled artisans at the different ateliers around Paris – like the embroiderer Lesage and Montex, the fabric flower maker Guillet, the pleater Les Atelier Lognon, or the feather creator Lemarié supplied the decorative elements and the in-house seamstress and ‘petit mains’ from the fashion house’s ateliers hand made each garment – worked together to churn out these spectacular unique garments shown on the catwalk.

The capacity of the fashion houses to make these couture clothes allowed their respective designers the unique possibility of crafting narratives to tell the story of and about these clothes with unprecedented staging and imagination. It is mainly the province of haute couture and so much more than for ready to wear that designers can foster the real drama and conjure an imaginary world in the service of arming the clothes with a sense and perhaps a place in fashion history. It’s been over a decade now, but I still remember the Dior Haute Couture Spring 2007 show as vividly as it happened. Faux snow falling onto the runway and the audience inside a tent at the Longchamp racing tracks, where models paraded in colorful, multifold kimono and obi New Look jackets and dresses, their faces done up with Geisha white makeup and Shalom Harlowe as the bride – in a white gown with bird origami folds – a show that the designer John Galliano simulated the imagined visual repertoire of ‘Pinkerton’s affair with Cio-Cio San, Madame Butterfly” with an abundance of grace, beauty, history and emotion all converged on each outfits.

Inside a tent erected the gardens of the Musée Rodin complete with harlequin flooring carpets and hanging tungsten halogen lights, the London all female circus company Mimbre performed its acrobatic routines among the models wearing micro tulle dresses with circular embroideries recalling clown decorations, metallic goddess gowns, and chiffon harlequin long dress. All necessary accouterments that set the atmosphere for Maria Grazia Chiuri's collection inspired by a 1955 Dior tour of London dubbed the ‘Dior Circus’ by the local press. In what turn out to be one of Chiuri’s strongest shows for Dior, the designer allowed the clothes and the inspiration and atmosphere to blend together to create a harmony where no elements overwhelm the other.

A sumptuous orange painted Mediterranean villa with a fountain, tall cypress hornbeam trees, and swimming pool dubbed ‘Villa Chanel’ provided the setting for a Chanel couture show where the lean silhouette and light floral clothes in palettes of pastels like the pink floral embroidered onto belted corset and long skirt. The light leaf green dress with floral folds or the white ceramic floral bustier dress - looks that at times evoke memory of the 18th century bodice with a full skirt template with the intricate constructions and embellishments that made the clothes felt now. While it was easy to imagine women in these clothes in an early evening seaside villa, the show and the couture garments placed Chanel at the forefront of championing high fashion with such a display of absolute beauty in such a siren setting in a world seemingly not only lacking but anathema to such splendor.

No special staging was required just simple rows of chairs in the different rooms at Valentino where Pierpaolo Piccioli delivered the season’s sensation in a stellar show where the designer simply deployed all the elements and premises of couture – ruffles, frills, fringe, volume, and flowers - to create and wrap his couture garments that evoke an emotion. Piccioli casted a new roster of women – this time about two third of the show models were black women – in clothes crafted with the ethos of couture which Piccioli considered immutable. What’s modern for couture is the new troupe of women wearing these garments – volume and colorful tiered ruffled dresses, giant multilayered flower dresses and orange taffeta with giant sleeves – all hand made in the most traditional manners possible.

The case at Maison Margiela was the opposite where the designer John Galliano deployed couture and the process of dressmaking as a way to create a small degree of order in the utter chaos that is the contemporary digital life guttered and littered with images everywhere and at all times. Galliano’s Artisanal clothes went from a multicolor one-piece formless ‘dress’ made to match the bluish graffiti backdrop to cargo pants that evolved into a dress. A series of black coats and herringbone boiler jacket, a more familiar clothing staples took shape until the last outfit, a black double-breasted onesie coat without sleeves. In a sense the same process took place in reverse as a demonstration of total control at Armani Privé show where the designer opted for lean shoulders and linear forms embellished with red and blue shiny ‘lacquered’ Art Deco motifs that spoke to the rigors of couture techniques to create clothes that while at times felt extreme offered a strong direction for his embrace of couture fashion. At Givenchy, Claire Waight Keller evolved her strict constructions by adding elements like latex to break the ice so to speak and added a little bit of sex appeal onto her repertoire of finely crafted garments.

What’s clear about couture in 2019 is the ability of the designers to lean on the traditional craftsmanship and handicraft skills of the respective ateliers to make one of a kind clothes around a dream and a fantasy that framed these exquisite dresses with narrative to evoke emotion. Even as Galliano railed against the craziness of the digital age, the elaborate and imaginative couture shows produced just the right images for the small screens of all the internet gadgets. Beauty notes: Les Beiges Glow Moisturizing Tint Light, Les Beiges Glow Foundation 12 Rose and 22 Rose, Sublimage Le Teint Beige Rose and Beige, Joues Contraste Powder Blush In Love and Rose Petale, Palette Essentielle Concealer Beige Clair, Les Beiges Natural Eyeshadow Palette Light, Les 4 Ombres Quadra Eyeshadow Spices, Illusion d’Ombre Convoitise, Rouge Allure Velvet Matte Lipstick 71 Nuance and 62 Libre, Rouge Allure Liquid Powder Matte Lip Color Invincible, Rouge Coco Allure Lipstick Dernier Givre and Boy, Le Vernis Nail Color Bleach Mauve, Ballerina, Organdi and Blanc White all by CHANEL.

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Photographed by: Fabien Montique. Models: Linde At Premium, Paris; Tao And Rickie At Supreme, Paris; Ruiqi Jiang At Marilyn, Paris, Aliou At 16men, Paris; Soni And Terence At Studio Paris Agency; Yu Hang At Success Paris. Makeup: Océane Sitbon. Casting: Nicolas Bianciotto At The-art-board.com