For his Spring Summer 2011 collection, Basil Soda drew inspiration from the depths of the sea and its legendary creatures: mermaids.
The Basil Soda woman becomes a siren in dresses that mold her body and support her slow but confident gait. A true Poseidon of fashion, the Lebanese couturier creates dresses that are works of art, seemingly living structures mixed with botanical elements for a natural, organic collection. The feminine is sublimated, the silhouettes long and wispy. The talent of the ateliers and the imagination of the couturier explode.
The seams of jackets and dresses are gathered, almost puffed, bringing a unique, new shape to a symphony of dresses perfect for the red carpet. Veils make the gait airy and unreal, the silhouette elongated.
Mustard and cream leaves are finely applied to French lace. Taupe-colored jackets are covered with sky-blue, tone-on-tone foliage and seem to bloom from their satin base.
The silhouettes are adorned with cream scales like articulated fish skin, but in the most elegant harmony. Cellular taupe ovals are superimposed in mille-feuilles of bright gold silk satin. Lace embroidery makes some dresses exquisite.
Golden, patinated and sprayed-on bone-effect accessories complete the silhouette, like scarab relics in copper, cyan blue and green. Hair is pulled up into a two-shell chignon reminiscent of seashells. Make-up is pared back, with the focus on the eyes in muted blue tones, a cradle of intensity. Lips are almost non-existent, like an outline of a mouth.
As for the color palette chosen by the Lebanese couturier for this collection, it evokes the underwater world. Basil Soda’s mermaid is adorned in different shades of blue, from lagoon blue to azure and deep blue, not forgetting a hypnotic green blue. But she also knows how to add touches of gold and cream reminiscent of sand. Taupe and other ochres lend a certain elegance to a dreamlike collection of rare softness.
Each new color appears subtly, like a caress in small gradations on a dress of another color, then becomes more and more present from one silhouette to the next, to become radiant and victorious.
To accompany her graceful gait, the woman chooses peep toe booties whose uppers are reminiscent of shark gills. Unless, of course, she prefers to place her delicate feet in ankle boots with dorsal fin-shaped heels.
As the final fireworks display, the bride appears like the ultimate siren, white with perfection in her deep-cut sheath, covered in silver threads. The long veil accompanies her every step with grace and softness.
For this Spring Summer 2011 collection, Basil Soda’s talent for transporting us into his universe reached its peak. From the very first dress, the imagination took over, and we too were in its marine depths. But what he hadn’t told us was a definite sense of poetry and a meticulousness of detail that borders on perfection, without ever going overboard.
Filmed by Luxsure with a Kodak Playtouch
Photo credits: ©Patrice Stable
Marie-Odile Radom
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