On Sunday night in a Paris fizzing with post-lockdown euphoria, in a single-block street in the Marais where the designer Azzedine Alaïa once lived and worked, the first live couture week in a year a half began.
The pavement was lit by klieg lights, lined by two rows of black folding chairs, and clogged with fashion folk: movie stars (Owen Wilson, Monica Bellucci), designers (Raf Simons of Prada; Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino), and those who had once been regulars in the Alaïa kitchen (Farida Khelfa, the model and filmmaker; Anna Coliva, the art historian and curator).
All come to see Pieter Mulier, the Belgian designer who spent many years by the side of Mr. Simons, but had never run a house of his own, do what many had believed could not be done after the unexpected death of Mr. Alaïa in 2017: take on the legacy of the last great couturier of the 20th century, a famously independent creator, and make it his own.
He proved he could speak Alaïa, with a sort of whistle-stop tour through the ABC’s of the brand: the sleek cowl-like hoods, the body-con knits, the crisp white shirting and marabou and python, the bike shorts and corset belts, the constructivist denim and iridescent flou. The highly controlled, sculpted volumes: sometimes billowing outward, sometimes second-skin.
