For her third Spring\/Summer 2013 Couture collection, Zahia Dehar reinvents her fairy-tale, sensual universe. As a delicate dreamer, she invites us to share her version of a legend she wrote, in which she summons beauty and innocence, the joy
\nof living, nature transfigured. Her tale of the “Season of Flowers” resembles a graceful interlude where, beneath a frivolous exterior, nostalgia is never far away. Il Etait Une Fois (Once upon a time)
\nis a story of pretty shepherdesses and ugly witches vying for eternal beauty. Here, butterflies speak to humans, and strange, rare flowers are the source of life.
\nIn Zahia Dehar’s Cabinet des F\u00e9es, fortunately, the princes always save the lovely peasant girls, helped a little by the G\u00e9nies de l’Amour incarnated by exquisite little creatures from heavenly forests. The young ingenues regain their peachy complexion and fall, of course, into the arms of a charming man on a dazzling white horse. Love blossoms…and…let’s pick the rose! This world full of verve and fantasy is sewn into the blond of summer, the gold of wheat grains, the fragrance of lavender.
\nNaturalist and sensual, the season is dedicated to freedom in the bush, to the disarming abandon of bodies in the hay,
\nto the grass that tickles. Once again, the mastery of skilled artisans has transformed precious fabric coupons into pastoral scenes worthy of the painter Watteau.
\nAs if by magic, Zahia Dehar conjures up an idyllic but very real summer, resurrected right down to the twigs of golden straw that cling surreptitiously to petticoats and corsets. The shepherdesses of this princely Hameau
\nare (un)dressed in caracos woven in cool mists, embellished with light embroidery. Garlands of daisies cascade over these ravishing wild women, embroidered one by one on a tulle strap. Playful, they have snatched
\nfeathers from the birds to make themselves a powder-pink adornment.
\nSheaves of wheat, patiently hemmed and embroidered grain by grain, roll into the hollows of the scallops. In these vaporously charming scenes, a skilfully woven straw basket provides a breathtaking backdrop for a dress, draped
\nlike a corolla, with swarms of field flowers picked one by one. Elsewhere, like a case, an elytra imprisons the naked skin of a butterfly woman; armfuls of mauve, parma and violet lavender are transformed into the ravishing apron of
\n. Nor is it unusual for a voluptuous rose petal, white edged with purple, to encase the body of a nymph. And then, abracadabra, a shower of rosebuds picked this morning falls on a short crinoline. Drenched in
\na multicolored palette, this precursor to the dawn symbolizes the passage of a summer as sweet as it is tender… <\/p>\n
Flower season<\/strong>
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