Paris celebrates French-Tunisian designer Azzedine and the democratization of fashion in the new exhibition “Azzedine Alaïa, Another Way To Look At Fashion: The Tati Collection”, dedicated to the famous Spring 1991 Tati collection. The exhibition, organized by Association Azzedine Alaïa and curated by Olivier Saillard with the collaboration of Christoph Von Weyhe and Carla Sozzani, open to public from July 1, 2019 until January 5, 2020 at the Galerie Azzedine Alaïa, located in 18, Rue de la Verrerie.
In addition to the iconic check-printed pieces, the exhibit also features sketches by artist Thierry Perez, representing the designs, and photos and film footage by Ellen von Unwerth showing models including Naomi Campbell (who was discovered by Alaïa himself in the first place) wearing the pieces. The paintings by Julian Schnabel, a close friend of the designer who was the original inspiration behind the collection, will of course be a part of the exhibition as well.
This exhibit wants to celebrate Alaïa, who passed away in 2017, for his fundamental role in the
process of the democratization of fashion, being a pioneer of the co-branding phenomenon: in fact,
he was the first haute couture designer to collaborate with a mass-market retailer. Alaïa created his
whole collection inspired by an iper-graphic checked-print, trademark of the French chain Tati
(which had already inspired the “Tati Paintings” by Julian Schnabel). He obtained the allowance to
use the iconic print launched by Jules Ouaki and in return, he created a capsule collection for Tati
which included a T-shirt, a shopper and a pair of espadrilles. The capsule collection, however, will
not be on display because the pieces are not very well preserved. Anyway, the curator of the
exhibition confirmed that it will be possible to see them in Thierry Perez’s drawings. About the
collaboration with Tati, Alaïa had stated: "I wanted to design something of good quality for this
clientele who until then could not afford fashionable clothes".
The next collaboration of this kind only happened in 2004, when the collection Karl Lagerfeld designed for the Swedish high street chain H&M was put on sale.
words Elena Affricani
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