Let’s face it: Azzedine Alaïa was a real homebody. The building on the Rue de Moussy, which still houses the original Paris Alaïa boutique, is where the Tunisian-born couturier also worked, cooked, ate, slept, entertained, hoarded vintage haute couture, and — only when he really felt like it — put on fashion shows.
Exalting that legacy, but in a very 2023 way, Alaïa creative director Pieter Mulier invited the international fashion pack to his hometown of Antwerp, right up to the 21st floor of a 1970s apartment tower where he lives with his partner Matthieu Blazy, creative director of Bottega Veneta.
Surrounded by ceramics, contemporary art, tons and tons of concrete arranged into ramps, bannisters, sloping ceilings and the heaviest bathroom sink imaginable, Mulier says that’s where he is the happiest.
Given its rooftop garden, giant windows and staggering views of a charming port city, it’s easy to see why.
Dries Van Noten, Raf Simons, Martine Sitbon, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Vincent Cassel were among those who poked around the sprawling penthouse sipping Mulier’s favorite beer and searching for their seat cards on a hodgepodge of benches and midcentury chairs.
Three of the guests found themselves perched on the edge of Mulier’s and Blazy’s bed, cloaked in an expanse of black leather, while others faced each other in narrow corridors, close enough that the ballgowns and the trousers, bulging out into semicircles at the outseams like parentheses, grazed their knees.
The collection was smooth, sultry and dramatic in subliminal ways: silvery embroideries resembling straight pins glinting around curving seams, or scattered over a tube dress; patent leather carved into a lattice resembling fishnet stockings for an arresting trenchcoat, and faux fur swaths fronting handsome wool coats.
The designs were austere and often black, which are hallmarks of the Belgian school of fashion, but Mulier’s had a sexual pulse and an unabashed sensuality. The body was covered, but in fabrics that cling, arranged to exalt the female form.
“It’s all about circular cutting,” the designer said, noting that most of the tailoring was realized with knit fabrics. “It’s all about curves and sculpture. It was always said that Azzedine was the best sculptor of fashion.”
After the show, guests repaired to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, which reopened last September after 11 years of complex restoration, during which a new, modern building was incorporated into the neoclassical landmark.
Mulier’s guest were free to roam the gleaming white floors of the new section, and the chevron parquet of the old, taking in six centuries of Flemish and European art. Eventually they wound their way to the soaring, blood-red gallery dedicated to Peter Paul Rubens, where two long dinner tables had been laid out, scattered with candles, bunches of grapes and smashed pomegranates.
It was a sumptuous night at the museum and Mulier proved himself a host with the most.