Style & Culture: Azzedine Alaia

Azzedine Alaia - Fall 2011
(Photo: Stephane Feugere for WWD)

Azzedine Alaia has been one of my favorite fashion designers for over 20 years. His work always captures creativity and embodies the essence of beauty in a woman. Paris fashion week recently wrapped up and Alaia chose to show his fall 2011 collection to a selected group of editors in a showroom a week later. Alaia has never allowed the pressures of fashion week to fall on him and recently told WWD that he choses to work on his own terms. He says that the pressure for designers to constantly put out collections twice a year and doing a resort line leaves less room to be creative. It also doesn't allow the public and media to absorb what was created before the next collection is pumped out.

Alaia's fall collection uses a mixture of textures and patterns along with his usual signature silhouettes that hug a woman's body. The collection featured gowns, short dresses, trench coats and plenty of knitwear. One of my favorites is the tiered skirt with a zigzag neckline (pictured above).