GIVENCHYcouture (+elie saab)

Givenchy's couture collection was a little bit underwhelming for me. Riccardo Tisci clearly makes beautiful clothes, and the collection was full of gorgeous details -- draping, textures, furs -- but for me it didn't seem to stand apart from his ready-to-wear work enough. This, one of his first looks out, is pretty amazing, if only a little Balenciaga-esque:

That coat is serious. And I love those bandage-y ankle straps on the shoes.

This is incredibly glamorous in a classic sexy-black-dress-and-fur-coat kind of way, but the volume of the coat and the textures and cut of the dress make it different. I'd love to see that dress close up -- I think we'd all be blown away.

This dress screams Givenchy to me. All the draping and twisting in the middle, that long pleated section of the skirt -- for me, that's what Tisci is so good at: creating tons of texture in what, from far away, appears to be a simple black dress.


And now, a word or two regarding Elie Saab:

Everything he puts down the runway looks like something Beyonce should be wearing. Stop bedazzling the hell out of everything, Elie. We're tired of it.

He's obviously very talented, technically. We're just not seeing anything new.