Before turning her hand to fashion, Alice Vaillant was a ballet dancer, training at the Paris Opera for a number of years. It was that background she called on for her fall collection, mixing it up with references to 1920s Parisian archetypes in deference to the city she was born in.
“I wanted to pay tribute to Paris,” she explained. She imagined a meeting between Bronislava Nijinska, a dancer in the Ballets Russes, and a typical Parisian of the time on the street with a sailor cap, a “titi Parisien,” in a world where dance meets a nostalgia-tinged memory of street life.
The opening looks featured open-knit bodysuits like textural versions of leotards, underpinning statement outerwear pieces, like a black satin coat with fur trim and white rose embroideries, or later in the show worn with a full taffeta skirt, trailing to the rear and showing the legs at the front.
Further references to the ballet were plentiful, as with feathered overskirts evoking tutus that fluttered, rather than quivered, down the runway.
Lace-edged silk slips, cut on the bias, came in variant after variant both on and off the catwalk, a house signature sported by a multitude of front row residents too. Vaillant built on that register with a more voluminous caftan dress in a bitter lemony hue, its deep V back hemmed in lilac lace, or with black leather pants and skirts with peekaboo details.
Workwear elements were woven in, literally, via blue overalls with lacing features, through outsized flight jackets, and via sailor stripes, a French staple that was offset in contrasting widths on draped jersey.
