Alexis Mabille spring 2009

Chic Française, undeniable freshness and charming humour, the spring 2009 collection, based on "an imaginary mixed school" is the second one for designer Alexis Mabille presented during Haute Couture season in Paris.

Young couturier Alexis Mabille earned the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture diploma in 1997 and designed for Ungaro, Nina Ricci, Dior and John Galliano before launching his own line of both RTW womenswear and menswear in 2005.

The collection's starting point is a "fun loving, unconventional gang of students, teachers and parents" partying at this dreamy art&fashion school, of course. His two main sources of inspiration included: formal eveningwear with tuxedos, black frocks with piqué shirt bibs, party dresses, and formal accessories such as the bow-tie.

And there is also the college/military uniforms as well as sportswear: braid-trimmed boleros, cardigans and skirts, double-breasted jackets with large metallic buttons and belts, navy school-girl shifts and skirts, pleated tennis dresses and hoodies.

The fashion show, held at Palais Galliera, included both women's and men's designs, for a better understanding of the whole concept: shaking the established "bourgeois" dress codes with lightness and humour: daywear mixed with eveningwear, sportswear with formals, feminine with masculine influences.

The bow motif, which he started working on in 2005 with TREIZEOR, a line of couture bow-ties, turned up in satin shoe heels, as hair decorations or as peacock-feather brooches while the bow-tie clutch is the item of the spring 2009 season.