Dress

Azzedine Alaïa

ca. 1998 · acetate, metal · Costume Institute

Azzedine Alaïa never followed fashion, but stated "It's women who have dictated my direction, I have followed the education of their silhouette." He worked the two-dimensional textile into a sculptural three-dimensional garment like a sculptor works with stone. Inspired by the work of Madeleine Vionnet, whose work he collected, he engineered bias-cut dresses in jersey fabrics using synthetic fibers that cling to the body, resulting in his nickname "The King of Cling." The sensual silhouette of this dress echoes the elegant draped silhouettes of Alaïa's youth in Tunis, and testifies of his eternal quest and research into the "academy of the female body," as he called it.

Artist

Azzedine Alaïa

Date

ca. 1998

Medium

acetate, metal

Culture

French

Department

Costume Institute

Credit line

Purchase, Millia Davenport and Zipporah Fleisher Fund, 2020