Colleen Allen was one of three women among this year’s 10 LVMH Prize finalists. One way to describe the heroine of the collection she presented, in short succession, to the jury in Paris and then in a showroom on models in New York, is as a fashion nun—but not in the glib sense of someone who always wears black or who works to the exclusion of relationships. Rather, Allen seemed to be trying to reconcile the spiritual and the sensual, the body and belief, discipline and desire.
On the moodboard were images of nuns and Regency fashions of the sort Jane Austen characters wore. There were also photographs of the high priestesses of modern movement, Martha Graham and Pina Bausch. “I was thinking about dance as this sort of access to an ecstatic spiritual religious state,” Allen said.
It might be possible to draw a parallel between the rigor of the dance and the tautness of the trained body with the precision of the designer’s patternmaking. The sparrow-like precision of the back of a cropped, historically-inspired tailored jacket was constructed with one seam. Just as thought out were C-shaped cuts that created lavish and languorous drapes as the cloth pulled diagonally across the body with a tantalizing tension.
Allen’s designs aren’t #balletcore as online culture understands it, though. “I love the idea of looking at the proportions of the way that dancers dress,” said the designer, who explained that the theme inspired her to start to move beyond waist-centric silhouettes and focus on the elongated body. Empire-waisted Regency styles certainly emphasize verticality; they also carry with them the fragrance of the past. More effective was the designer’s exaggeratedly short take on the Spencer jacket when paired with a strapless gown. The slits of skin showing between hem of the jacket and top of the dress and between the lapels resembled an abstract clerical collar.
It was interesting to see how Allen started blocking out the body in thirds. She did this by showing a persimmon capelet over a black top with a white skirt. Best of all was the way Allen placed a Spencer and low-waisted pants over a sheer body stocking she developed in cooperation with Swedish Stockings to maximize the long lean effect.
Moody hooded looks created a kind of medieval feeling that was augmented by an all-over coin-embroidered dress. Lighter was a black slip dress with orange coin-covered pieces of orange fabric over one breast and one shoulder. These made music in movement and they somehow conjured Joan of Arc, a woman whose sacrifice continues to be of fascination in fashion and pop culture. Joan, Martha, Pina… they are the ideal Allen muses, being strong of mind and body.
