The New Alaïa Jeans Are Everyday Denim Erotica (EXCLUSIVE)
Alaïa is a maison steeped in sensuality. Founder Azzedine Alaïa "put modern erotica into fashion" as one 2018 obituary put it, with the couturier's sultry second-skin dresses causing a stir (and then a parade of imitators) when they hit Paris in the early '80s. While everyone else was designing big clothes, Alaïa proposed clingy garments indebted to their wearer's form.
The new line of Alaïa denim, debuted by Highsnobiety, offers a half-dozen silhouettes defined by the master's design codes, reconsidering a daily driver as something... saucy.
Denim is of course an Alaïa classic, having been part of the house's oeuvre since the '90s or so. But even under the purview of Pieter Mulier, who only just stepped down as Alaïa's creative director earlier this year, it's merely been part of the greater Alaïa universe. Now, Alaïa denim is getting specific.
Six unique silhouettes inform the new Alaïa denim collection: bootcut, palazzo, skinny, straight, round, and fit and flare. The names are pretty self-explanatory but the actual styles are retooled under the auspices of Alaïa motifs.
Even the press release can't resist underlining the sensuality at play, noting how the flared jeans "hold close" and the skinny jeans "embrace the body." Even Alaïa's Japanese denim is a second skin.
It's key to remember, though, that though the shapes are classic the finishing is contemporary. The release notes that the development of this line took a full year, and much of that time was presumably spent developing the bespoke treatments that define each piece.
The silhouettes are dialed in to that Alaïa feel — the campaign goes to great pains to highlight the curves inherent to even the looser cuts — but so is the finishing, with each pair of rope-dyed jeans elevated by laser-imprinted fades and specially concocted dyes, reigned in by hand-washed softness.
In this way, the Alaïa denim approaches the a level of elegance that recalls the maison's couture classics, the precision of its signature hand-draped gowns.
It's just that while Alaïa couture is for special occasions, its denim is everyday erotica.
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