Roland Mouret: 'Important,' For Sure
Written by: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by Gruber-FWD
LONDON, Feb 25, 2002/ FWD/ --- Though the title of Roland Mouret's fall 2002 collection
was the bombastic "Important Pieces," the clothes more than lived up to their billing.
Staged in the elegant setting of Christie's London headquarters in an octagonal room from
whose ceiling hung four sumptuous chandeliers, Mouret's collection was a lesson to his
colleagues in Britain about how important it is to concentrate on making beautiful clothes.
While too many London designers appear to regard themselves as above all fine artists,
Mouret, a Frenchman who has chosen London as his base, is engrossed with making great fashion.
The collection of little more than twenty pieces had no prints and a limited color palette,
and was composed of few fabrics -- essentially silk, marocaine and jersey.
But in terms of cut, detail and silhouette, it was rich.
Mouret opened with a series of fluid dresses in beige, black and silver that had great
poise and a unique feel thanks to belts that were padded and overlaid with a cord Japanese
style.
The look was fresh, feminine and really worked.
He showed surgically-cut flared pants under blouses with billowing sleeves, chic but
never impractical open-backed dresses and beautiful peak-shouldered coats and jackets with
astutely placed buttons.
"They represent my vision of how my culture and heritage translate into today's society,"
Mouret said of his clothes in the program notes.
This sense of history was transparent in his soundtrack -- a beguiling melange of Russian
singers and Hollywood movie soundtracks with appearances by Marlene Dietrich and Ingrid Bergman.
But while history imbued this collection, it still managed to be contemporary.
Mouret won the Cutting Edge talent award for this season and its $40,000 prize, awarded
by Vidal Sassoon, one of London fashion week's key sponsors.
Judging from this show, many more awards will be his in the future.
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