“The body has to breathe,” said Rabih Kayrouz—and he meant it. The breathtaking opening look of his collection, a suit in a clear shade of red made using a crispy, paper-like cotton, featured a near-weightless jacket made of just three pattern pieces. “It’s completely free on the side and on the shoulder there is a ribbon that holds the pieces together,” the designer explained on a call.
His drawings reveal that many of the pieces are magicked up from rectangular pieces of cloth. Patterns and form, rather than themes and decoration, make this designer tick. “I’m a couturier, I’m not an art director,” said Kayrouz.
“I am here to work a collection; to create cuts and to create volumes.” Along with breezy tailoring, the designer offered flou in the form of liquid satin pajama-style pants, and volume in bubble hemmed dresses that were more buoyant, in shape and attitude, than the horizontal, classical chic of a one-shoulder draped dress (which also came as a top) in royal purple. What Kayrouz referred to as his metallic jacquard “mermaid” dresses were fanciful in fabric only; the simple-seeming construction of look 30, for example, was arrived at through exactitude.
Adapted from a previous couture collection was a knit dress with spiraling cording; it was impressive, but felt more consciously considered, stiffer and more formal in comparison with pieces like an elegant, slip-on-and-go shirt dresses, generously cut khakis, and a strapless dress in a sha.