Youth Bucks the Trend at Paris Couture Week

To compensate for the high-profile omissions, the French Federation of fashion and designers invited a number of young, up-and-coming designers to exhibit their work at the event – which also attracted several big name guests from the fashion and celebrity worlds, including Kate Moss, Eva Herzigova, Diane Kruger and Jessica Alba.

One fresh face from the design circuit was Alexis Mabille, who was bestowed with the honour of opening the Paris fashion extravaganza with his Spring 2011 Haute Couture collection.

The French-born designer caught the fashion bug as a child wandering around museums in home-city of Lyon. His first foray into hands-on design came from cutting up discarded petticoats and pieces of lace and sewing them back together.

After receiving his diploma from Paris’ Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in 1997, he undertook apprenticeships at fashion houses Ungaro and Nina Ricci. He then joined Christian Dior with whom he stayed for nine years. During his time at Dior he created fine jewellery for John Galliano, as well as the Dior Homme line overseen by Hedi Slimane.

In 2005 he launched Alex Mabille, a collection of unisex ready-to-wear clothing. Six years later, in the fashion mecca of Paris, he stayed true to his belief that couture and ready-to-wear clothes should go hand-in-hand. He sent models down the runway in an eclectic mix, including coquettish cigarette pants, in white or floral print, matched with a white or black cinched-waist jacket, just-above-the-knee full-skirt strapless dresses and old world glamour gowns.

The Paris event ran from January 24th – 27th.