Black Panther: the most graceful of felines, woman-enigma, mysterious and elusive as the night – this is how presented their heroine the Franco-Spanish designer duo Arnaud Maillard and Alvaro Castejon in the new couture fall-winter 2014/2015collection for a revived several seasons ago fashion house Loris Azzaro.

In the 60s-70s of the last century, the name Azzaro belonged to the only king of Parisian parties, the designer, in whose creations dressed the most beautiful and famous stars of higher artistic society from Sophia Loren and Isabelle Adjani to Marisa Berenson and Dalida.

Classically French color restraint and absence of oversophisticated silhouettes is implicated at Azzaro in apparel provocation, permitted in the fashion capital only after dark. Seduce but never approach the fringe, beyond which lies the vulgarity, was the credo of the founder of the fashion house, inherited by his new followers

Frenchman Arnaud Maillard and his Spanish companion Alvaro Castejon coped brilliantly well with the formulated task. How could it be any different after 15 years that Arnaud spent under the wing of “Kaiser” Karl Lagerfeld, while Alvaro sharpened his talents in fashion “houses of dream” (Oscar de la Renta, Givenchy and Alexander McQueen).

Fashionable daytime dress code consisting of black and white, nude and night sky colors in the new collection designers enriched with fiery red, royal blue, turquoise and aubergine. Silk jersey, forming the basis of the Azzaro’s dresses, in symbiosis with muslin insets, embroidery and lace continues to prevail. Indispensable for modern “fêtard” mini-dresses are alternated with flowing evening dresses. The emphasis is placed on the play with transparency: to expose some parts of the body and hide the others.

An indisputable, in my opinion, design finding is a muslin inset in a floor-length dress in the shape of an inverted champagne glass. It will surely turn not a single head, and not only in a Parisian night.

Photo credits: Azzaro /  Fred Atlan / Vidi