Style File: Brood’s Couture Feeling, Practical Ease

Style File Brood's Couture Feeling, Practical Ease 26 Oct 2010, 10:28 pm Brood’s Serkan Sarier has worked in the studios of an enviable list of designers—from Giambattista Valli to Olivier Theyskens to Carolina Herrera—but the one that left the deepest mark was his first job, right out of school in Antwerp, assisting Emanuel Ungaro in his Paris couture atelier. “He worked very old-school,” the soft-spoken designer explained. “He had a live model standing there from 8 to 5, and he would pin everything manually. I was the one who was giving the pins. You could see really close up how these things were made, and it made sense why this world was slowly dying.” (It was, incidentally, Ungaro’s last year in couture.) “I said, hopefully one day I will have the opportunity to create something that has the feeling of something couture, but the approach is more practical and easier.” Voilà: a collection of evening dresses—though often in cocktail lengths—that imbues couture staples (the bow, the ruffle, the tier, the cape) with a sleek, sporty ease. (For the line’s debut, Vera Wang, Patrick Robinson, and Zac Posen all came by to check them out.) Dresses are snaked with zippers and cinched with elastic and toggles; “instead of hand-stitching, you just use the stopper and measure it to your body,” Sarier said. For his material, he chose a slightly shimmery silk taffeta, a fabric that’s a mainstay of couture—as a lining. Here, the inside is all out, for an enviable lightness. The upshot? Evening clothes for wherever the evening takes you. He mused on the life of the contemporary gala-goer: black-tie first, after-party later. “I love the idea that a girl can be appropriate and completely dressed for both occasions,” he said. “She can sit at a table and have Champagne, and two hours later, she sits in the stairwell of a club and has a bottle of beer in her hand.” Just don’t get any on the dress, please. —Matthew Schneier Photo: Michael Beauplet You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed.