Tony Talks Robert Wun

As I approached the Hotel d’Evreux in Place Vendome on a cold and damp night in January 2023 I had little idea what awaited me. That first couture collection closed the season and quickly after the applause ended, I was heading towards Eurostar. The collection was original, inventive, and creative and already with its own personal signatures.

I back then I wrote “Bold statements evoke bold responses, a fashion collection which uses “fear” as its inspirations and which is a designers Paris couture debut is never going to be just “nice.” I was amongst the small, selected audience for this special event, both a couture debut and the final official show on the Federation calendar for the week. It was imaginative, with each outfit telling a different story yet linked by the theme, each look slowly making a circuit of the small space slowly and carefully. Often trailing fabric panels or long scarf like streamers the looks edged their way past allowing us to see the drape, the construction, the workmanship, and the way the shapes of each garment had been manipulated to create strong silhouettes. Watching the show there were many things which seemed so lovely; the emerging cascades of curved loops from the neckline with crystal droplets, the wine-stained dress curving around every inch of the wearers body, the swing and ceremony of the vast deep electric blue dress, the look which froze rain onto the entire outfit, or the red peplum look that spelt diva drama. An auspicious couture debut. “ 

This season much of that remains true. At Le Lido on the Avenue de Champs Elysees the cabaret seating space curved around the stage, as the show started huge screens played film of ominous clouds scudding across darkened skies, later we had storms and lightening, and some shafts of sunlight but it was an ominous background. The collection played on strong linear silhouettes from cropped tailcoats or Regency style dandy lines, through fit n’ flare skirt and dress silhouettes and curved crinoline ball gowns. Often lines were sharply scissored and flared allowing the figure in outline to have both a slender outline and flared cuffs or collars winging away from the body. Veils training over and behind the model and pagoda shoulders and trailing panels also extended the line as the models paraded across the stage. There was a superb unofficial red, in one outfit using several fabric textures in slightly layered tones of red and also in red bubble skirt made I assume from vacuum forming rubber? There were two looks in electric violet blue, one with huge cur ing harem pants, both looks embellished with jewels fir for a Maharajah. A white. Crinoline was covered in doves and a black one in crows or ravens. The finale dress featured a coruscating embroidered interpretation of the cosmos, a constellation of stars twinkling into infinity.

This season the designer himself said “The aim of this collection is to encompass a story of character building through couture craftsmanship. Each look is crafted to represent the three stages of emotion: to be inspired, to feel desired, and to have the courage to go forward.

In the world of couture, it is often questioned whether it still reflects who we are, but I believe it still exists because it reflects how we wish to be. A dream, the ability to dream, and the will to keep dreaming. They all exist because of a creator’s courage and their purest intention to create.”

Words by Tony Glenville