On Thursday for Lebanese-born Zuhair Murad, the treasured tour de force of the most A-list acclaimed red carpet offerings, the grace of flora and the zest of a fairy-tale fauna colour palette, reigned supreme.
Murad, whose sublime creations this season will surely be making a fair few appearances during awards season, regarded this collection as a testament to the “Parisian idea”, with delicate guipure lace in a phantasm of many marvellous hues emerging as the key component, contrasted fabulously with waist cinching golden filigree belts, spurring undertones of a subtle, gleaming tension.
The rosy, youthfully doe-esque nymphs that emerged from Murad’s garden of Eden, exhibited a bold, daring, coquettish display of skin, skin full of vitality, featuring the aforementioned fragile lace, drifty and streaming, resting exquisitely upon the naked flesh of the divine female forms.
Softly tailored double-breasted full length gowns capitalised on the harmonious pairing of luminous flashes of white and precise gold detailing, with an overruling emphasis on a classic hourglass silhouette, as timeless couture peplums paired with sleek pencil skirts flourished.
Diaphanous embellishments and ivory intricacies, akin to soft scaling, flamboyant petals or even intriguing to the touch autumn leaves underpinned a girlish femininity of blushing, bashful carnation, evident in refined clinging shapes and slinky floral jumpsuits.
Whimsical trickery, with a smoke and mirrors ambience à la Jean Louis’s iconic nude gowns created to preserve Marlene Dietrich’s allure as the fear of ageing loomed, saw further glorification of the skin, accentuating an animal magnetism due to liberal feathering upon the bust, as well as wild, provocative, zebra and python print embroidery.
The show-stopping wedding gown which marked the finale, of powdery white, a frothing, flora cornucopia, flowing with a sense of new life, beckoned by 25,000 floral appliqués, is case in point that Murad knows how to cater in the kind of couture confectionery that his clients will favour, envisioning a fantasy only aligned with the world of couture.
by Liam Feltham
Images courtesy of Style.com