Angelilli Haute Couture

Jan 30

Last Spring I visited the colorful, fantastical, island of Burano in the Venetian Lagoon, and met a very skilled and passionate Italian woman nearing 90 yrs old, who has been making the finest intricate lace by hand her whole life.

I was attracted to this piece, which I could actually afford, and she made me promise I would repurpose this lace into a dress. I came up with soft blue layers of organza and chiffon, giving the top structure and the bottom flow in a modern 20’s silhouette.

The piece turned out to be made for an epic celebration, my Godmother Arlette’s 100th Birthday, born October 19th 1925. It brought me a special kind of satisfaction to wear this piece for Arlette and to celebrate a limitlessly strong woman who embodies joy and true love of life like nothing I’ve ever seen. Other than my dearest friend who took these images Arthur Elgort.

I appreciate the way high dressmaking not only requires immense hand skill and countless hours, but also the incredible people, places, history, stories and myth that are both created by the making of and infused into a single piece. Never to be repeated or replicated in the same way, again.

I can’t get Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel Couture SS26 out of my mind, it’s quietly enchanted me the most of anything I’ve seen out of Paris this week, You?