Initial reaction:
If anyone knows how to build up the intensity of a show, it's Riccardo Tisci. Guests arrived to an artwork called 'Exploded Plane' hanging in the space, a spectacular collaboration with the Dutch artist Paul Veroude. A dismantled a Reims Cessna F172E plane from 1964, it was a technical drawing come to life, uniting concepts of precision and engineering with beauty and art. Last night, Tisci reaffirmed his own cult status with a collection that, like Veroude’s piece, expertly brought together two seemingly oppositional forces: severity and romanticism. With elements that recalled his first show for the house, for Tisci it was also a celebration of his five year reign at Givenchy. "I feel so romantic, I'm going to be forty this year!" he laughed backstage.
Take me to the dark side:
"I always come back to the dark side. It's what I'm most attracted to," Tisci explained. This season – like many of his collections – he explored the duality between something quite aggressive and uniform and something much more romantic. Leather thigh-high lace up boots were worn with pearl embellished floral print garments, and all of his models emerged onto the runway with their hair pushed back inside black hairnets. His female models – including Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel and Irina Shayk – made their way around the industrial show space in sheer dresses (which revealed bondage-style underwear) and thick black cat eyes.
Cult casting:
"I'm always very obsessed with the casting. During the year I find men and women from around the world. Sometimes I think it's sad that an agency always presents the same girls to a designer," Tisci explained backstage. Over the years he's firmly established his own cult of muses including Mariacarla Boscono (who graced the cover of Dazed's spring/summer 14 issue dripping in Givenchy) and transgender model Lea T. Tonight the Givenchy army were out in full force.
Last season, Tisci took Givenchy to a basketball court, with models concealed behind wire and nets that covered their faces. See it below:
