Alainpaul Spring/Summer 2025 / SS25 at Paris Fashion Week presents Show 3 – THÉÂTRE DU CHÂTELET.

Illuminated by the early light beaming through the windows, a dancer’s morning class takes place in the optical white surroundings of the rehearsal studio. In this laboratory, experiments of body awareness and improvisation unfold. For Alainpaul Spring/Summer 2025, Alain Paul explores the instinctive relationship between dancer and movement. In expressions imbued with the gestures inherent to the domain of the morning class, garments are pulled, stretched sideways, elongated and compressed. Freeze-framed from these extractions and extensions, skewed forms interact with gravity in the definition of a silhouette expressed in the fluidity and grace of motion.

Silhouette of Alainpaul Spring/Summer 2025 / SS25, A focus on fuseaux – ballet tights that a‑ach to the sole with an elastic band – informs the construction of outerwear, tailoring, shirts, dresses and skirts stretched around the foot. The structures create a suspended silhouette that extends the physique and follows the movement of the wearer. Garments crafted through flat pattern-cutting trace the elongation and pulling of clothes to one side of the body – imitating a dancer’s extension of the arm or leg – creating a considerably asymmetrical shape. Applied to the brand’s signature justaucorps as well as t-shirts, shirts, trousers, dresses and skirts, the disproportionate forms collapse and drape along the physique, expanding the body’s movement.

A contrast to the amplification of motion, compressed tops and t-shirts in tulle create a fixation of the body beneath their translucent surfaces. The idea evolves in a top, pencil skirt and dress crafted in crin, which generates a shell-like see-through stiffness around the physique. The feeling is invoked in transparent nylon knitwear sculpted with bascule shoulders sans necklines. Denim pieces are shrunken to achieve a sensibility similar to justaucorps. Tailoring postured with the brand’s arched shoulder further draws on the idea of fixation with straps that hold an unbuttoned jacket in place and nip the silhouette. A juxtaposing sense of freedom is reflected in tailored shorts and sleeveless blazers.

Contrasting compositions created in black and white take inspiration from the costumes of Beach Birds, the 1991 ballet by Merce Cunningham whose choreography serves as a continual influence for Alain Paul. In his creative process, the American dancer embraced notions of spontaneity and improvisation and defied the preordained rules of traditional choreography. The approach takes physical form in prints informed by the aereal sketches Cunningham would draw for his choreography. Additionally, tops, skirts and dresses fully embroidered from tights pay homage to his affinity for legwork in accumulations that evoke the impression of le corps de ballet moving in synchronisation.

Accessories Alainpaul SS25, Bags crafted in leather draw on the language of knee and elbow protectors. Wrapped around the arm, the pochettes become an extension of the physique. Shoes created in soft lambskin take inspiration from the ballerinas of contemporary dance and materialise as the Merce Sling-back and the Merce Ballerina. Finally, the Pina Point Shoe – which evokes the toe of ballet slippers and gives the illusion of the foot bone deformation familiar to dancers – re-emerges as the Pina Mule, inspired by codes native to the rehearsal studio.

Biography. Alain Paul was born in Hong Kong in 1989. In 1997, his family relocated to France where he enrolled in the Opéra École National Supérieur de Danse de Marseille, presently the home of the (La)Horde company, in 1998. His upbringing was shaped by the rigour and discipline of contemporary ballet. At age eighteen, he sought a new creative outlet for the self-expression he had experienced through ballet and took up fashion studies in Paris. In 2014, he joined the newly-established Vetements under the creative direction of Demna and the executive direction of Guram Gvasalia where he remained until 2017. Between 2018 and 2022, he served on Virgil Abloh’s design team at Louis Vuitton. Alain Paul co-founded his eponymous label, ALAINPAUL, with his husband Luis Philippe in 2023. Their debut collection was unveiled during Paris Fashion Week in October 2023.

BY ANDERS CHRISTIAN MADSEN

All images Alainpaul SS25 / Spring/Summer 2025 by Alainpaul. PR Agency Karla Otto Paris.

Thank You. Anders Christian Madsen, Anania Orgeas, Anna Cofone, Anne Blum, Anne Marie Philippe, Bernadette De Freitas, Christine Corbel, Colette Roussaux, Daniel Hettmann, Erick Faulkner, Experiential/h Team, Fhcm, Gonzalo Ro Caballero, Greg Kohler, Heidi Yang, Hugo Castejon-blanchard, Ifm, Je Suis Casting, Jean Dalmas, Jean-pierre Philippe, Jerome Chaumond, Julien Doreilh, Julien Dufour, Karla Otto Team, Kennah Lau, Le Labo, Lola Abecassis, Maja Weiss, Marcel Wepper, Maria Galvao De Sousa, Mathieu Malbec, Mickael Karlsson, Olivia Garden, Ophelie Lebas, Sarah Andelman, Scott Mescudi, Senjan Jansen, Simon Ripert, Studio M, Theatre Du Chatelet.