The Alaia exhibition at Groninger Museum

I just came back from the most wonderful exhibition:

Azzedine Alaïa in de 21e eeuw - Groninger Museum

 My favorites, scanned from the beautiful catalog/book of the exhibition: 

A gorgeous fur coat. What is that fur? Some kind of long-haired lamb, a bit curly. I love the shawl collar and the woolen sleeves. At the museum I could look closely and the bit under the belt also has fur! If I ever make a copy of this coat myself, I can't imagine being able to fit myself AND the lamb fur under the belt, so for me that portion will have to be in wool or, why not, just have the belt integrated into the coat itself. Who needs more bulk at the waist!

Alaia coat, couture winter 2011

   This velvet dress is so simple, the only decoration is the lacing at the front. The museum was "moodily lit" in the room where this dress was, and because it is velvet I couldn't really see any of the seams, but if I were to make a copy I would keep the seams to a minimum, just what is needed to shape it to the body.

Alaia velvet dress, couture winter 2009

   And finally, a wool dress with very, very interesting seams. The thread outlines are just decoration, they don't follow the seams. The real seams are close to regular princess seams except that there are two diagonal darts radiating out from the armhole. They are sort of like regular bust-point darts except that they point downwards instead of towards the bust. At the front they would seem to follow the bust edge kind of like an underwire in a bra does. The dress also has the usual vertical darts at front (under the bust) and at back (under the shoulder blades) but the special bit is that at hip height, these darts are connected to each other with a horizontal dart or seam, making a square "U" shape. My guess is that with these horizontal seams one can add volume to the skirt in a "pouff" sort of way. This probably only works with fabrics with body like this flannel wool, and not on fluid fabrics like silk chiffon, for example.