The upcoming presidential election is clearly on many designers’ minds. Pieter Mulier, the creative director of Alaïa, was certainly mulling America—its lore, its culture, what it means to dress like an American. For spring 2025, Mulier took his musings about the concept of “American beauty” and shuttled them through the lens of his latest collection.
The September 6 evening show took place at the Guggenheim Museum, while an intimate crowd (including Rihanna, who made a rare NYFW appearance) watched models wind down the iconic spiral-shaped venue. Since Mulier took the helm at the brand in 2021, he’s been showing Alaïa collections in Paris, usually right before the couture season. This marked the first time the brand showed in New York under Mulier’s reign—and reportedly was also the first time a fashion show has been staged in the museum’s rotunda.
True to Alaïa form, sculptural clothing was the focus of the collection. Namely, palazzo pants with great movement or extreme takes on texture, like the chubby brushed fur spiral coat knitted from silk in candy pink. When Mulier wasn’t making a grand statement with shape, the collection seemed to nod to simplicity. Think: clean bandeaus paired with sheer skater skirts, or second-skin culottes.
The show notes referenced Alaïa’s affinity for sportswear, along with the American pioneers: Adrian Adolph Greenberg, Halston, Charles James, and Claire McCardell. Focusing fully on form, zippers and buttons were removed to give space to the liquid-like shapes. “For me, American beauty means freedom, of body and of spirit,” Mulier wrote in the show notes. “A simplicity, a modernity and directness, a purity. And both for Alaïa and myself, America is a home away from home. I lived and worked in New York for three years. It helped shape who I am today. And, in the 1980s, for Azzedine Alaïa, it was a city where his clothes and philosophy of design were embraced, where he opened his first store.” In many ways, the show signaled a full-circle moment, since Alaïa showed in New York for the first time in 1982.
With sculptural sandals and strategically curated jewelry placed throughout the collection, the looks celebrated what Mulier called an “American ideology of dress.” The task of defining American fashion as we know it in 2024 has never been more difficult, but Mulier put forth a beautiful proposal for an answer.
