Alexis Mabille

Pity the designer who had to follow Raf Simons' blockbuster debut at Dior. Today, that task fell to Alexis Mabille, and the Frenchman suffered by the comparison. A beauty look that had his models sporting crescent moon hairdos with diamanté brooches suspended from their tips did him no favors, but the collection's more fatal flaw was its lack of focus.



Backstage, Mabille said he was "imagining women as jewels." That gave him his far-ranging color palette—malachite to opal to topaz to platinum—and an excuse to lay the sequins on thick. Beyond that, it was hard to connect the dots between the show-opening clingy black jersey dress trimmed in 600 buttons and the finale look in nude crepe veiled in a silvery organza. Still, there were a few winners in the mix. The long-sleeved velvet number with slits on the front and back of the bodice and batwing sleeves stood out for its simplicity. There's beauty in diversity, sure, but a strong point of view is everything in fashion, as Simons made so clear at Dior. Mabille's collection didn't have enough of that.
—Nicole Phelps