ArdAzAei founder Bahareh Ardakani has been quietly working in ready-to-wear for several seasons now. This PFW, however, made it more formal by holding a presentation at his couture atelier on Rue Saint-Florentin.
“It’s all about creating versatile pieces that can be layered and styled in different ways, and that reflect movement in the garment,” Ardakani explained during the walkthrough. Echoing July’s couture outing, called The Folded Sea, a tightly edited knitwear lineup featured intricately engineered gills, called fleurs-de-mer after sea anemones, that could be tugged and draped around the body.
Innovative knitwear is Ardakani’s latest passion—not surprisingly, given his math and engineering background—and he makes a point of working with organic cashmere and virgin wool to create sculptural shapes with geometric ribbing. (About half of the collection was GOTS-certified, as was its atelier.) For this PFW debut, she opted for a calm luxury palette of beige, leather and black, with the occasional dash in blue jacquard for tank and skirt sets. That path — distinctive, chic, travel-friendly — seems worth going further.
As her clients well know, Ardakani cuts a modest trouser figure. Here, he presents some examples, showing coats and suits with some intricate geometry to mimic his pantridial couture constructions. Evening wear consisted of a short dress in orange taffeta, the fabric crumpling and flowing almost aquatically around the body. Statement coats, one in vegetable-tanned leather and the other in beige wool, were intricately cut and stitched together. Bevel-toed stilettos continue the brand’s signature look. Now that Ardakani has established her formal language, it will be interesting to see what happens when she relaxes into it a bit.
