Horsing around
Features | Michele Obi | January 23, 2007After a lengthy debate with myself I can safely say that I liked the couture presentation from Felipe Olivera Baptista for Spring Summer 2007. It wasn’t love at first sight but after careful inspection, I became fond of his concept. Maintaining the spirit of his past collections he kept his palette clean with black, white and the addition of metallic silver. The collection seemed to be underlined by an eccentric equestrian theme reminiscent of Balenciaga which for me Baptista took to another level by fearlessly experimenting with horse shaped head wear and what appeared to resemble horse hair hanging in between jackets and draped over platforms.
While I wasn’t too keen on either the head/foot wear I did like his use of volume and structure. Sleeves were consistently voluminous and his fondness for circular shapes prevailed into this season resulting in my favourite piece of the collection, this dimensional mid length dress.
[images:modeaparis]
I highly suspect that the concept here is Chess. These designs look loosely like a walking chess board.
See…I did think that for a while but chess didn’t explain the pieces which were reminiscent of swans. I interpreted the collection as revolving around the aspect of horse riding and the scenery encountered when out riding, for example lakes inhabited by swans