Tony Talks Peet Dullaert

Haute Couture in Paris in 2025 has designers who were born and trained across the globe. Peet Dullaert is Dutch and trained in Arnheim, yet much of his experience of fashion is pure Paris. Working at Lanvin with Alber Elbaz, talking to Pierre Berge and Helen de Ludinghausen at Yves Saint Laurent and presenting his work during fashion weeks there. His clients and his projects are international, and he explores innovative ideas and concepts constantly. I have seen all his recent couture shows, interviewed him and have a huge respect for his endeavour in one of fashions most challenging times.

How we respond to a designers work in fashion must be a balance, the heart, and the mind. When we write about the collection it is remarkably like a performance, the high points, the entrances and exits and the interpretation of the performers. Being moved by fashion or having a personal preferences means we must also declare it and analyse it.

From the very first collection of Peet Dullaert I was engaged, and as the seasons pass, I have worked to uncover why, and to dissect the reasons. I think his aesthetic is both an acknowledgment of the heritage of couture and its craft and a desire to move that forward and to think in modern terms. I believe he uses conventional techniques to tell a modern story, and he is poised between romantic and realist. Most of all I think his narrative spins a double-edged story where the grandeur is unravelling, and the beauty is awry. All is not what it seems at first glance.

I return to his Embassy and court influence in his work which offers the glamour and drama ribbons and sashs, juxtaposed against rigour and strictness. How he presents us with a jacket and trousers of refined tailoring and then throws a wisp of black tulle skirt around it, how the azure ribbons fastened with diamonds trail from the back of a white tailored suit and how the corset of the opening look in mourning black was half obscured by a swag across the bodice, and the skirt was seemingly  folded into one hip to then trail behind the wearer.

The whisper green dress with geometric beading running in curving arcs has an art deco air, and the palest lilac, a colour the French call violine, was in the finest crushed fabric rolled and draped twice from the hips revealed a semi transparent second skin bodice with the lines of a leotard outlined in diamonds.  The skirt appeared to fan out in both gathered and bias-cut swirls, and as often with this designer it looked nonchalant on first appearance and complex on closer examination.

One of my criteria for good design has always been back views and details, Peet Dullaert designs around the body and exits are as important as entrances. The bustles, and trains, trailing ribbons or tulle ruched at the front and released to trail behind, are all typical of his creativity around the body. The fabric often twists around the contours of the body, is asymmetric and encircles the model and a flourish or detail is often not seen first from the front. It is a hallmark of his work that one must wait until each look has passed and you have seen it from all angles.

Showing in the gilded salons of the Opera Comique with its fabulous rococo painted ceilings, and coruscating chandeliers, in total silence the audience’s attention was one hundred per cent focussed on the collection. As the applause and cheers rang out, I felt once again that I’d loved the collection both for how it wore its complexities with such nonchalance. It is Peet Dullaert’s vision of couture and to me both personally and professional I love it.

Words by Tony Glenville