Zuhair Murad’s couture materialisations this season were something of a trick of the eye, a superbly stitched sartorial trompe l’oeil if you will. Look a little closer at his stunning designs and you won’t get hoodwinked by the Met Gala readiness of them all, instead you should be able to distinguish something more reliant on the sharp geometrics of contemporary art-chitecture. The shiny gilded belt, a waist-cinching reoccurring emblem for Murad that predetermines early on where a collection is often going stylistically, made everything acutely clear. Last season it appeared to blossom like flora around the waist, this season its indurate construction all but brutalised the body in the most glitzy of fashions.
When it came to the slinky fashions of the day, which must have made quite a jangling melody on account of all of the tactile metallic embellishments, the strongest necklines were asymmetrical, plunged and hitched up by strong sculpted shoulders. Other décolletage dramatics were a little looser, accentuating assets and tumbling into striking body contouring gowns bedecked in gorgeous guipure macramé.
Apart from the structural man-made allusions to modern architecture the colour palette still evoked the natural world, albeit rather insta-filter saturated, the azure blues, vivid maraschino reds looked remarkable against the black on white numbers. Towards the end, the delicacy of the resplendent beadwork became increasingly awe-inspiring and heralded the star moment for the five-meter-long veil clad wedding gown, marking a masterpiece finale and another star turn for Murad, a master of modern couture.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Style.com