Her name is Look 28. She walked the haute couture runway in Paris earlier this year: a simple black velvet bodice, a butterfly-curved explosion of black tulle for a skirt, decorated below with a mosaic of fine beading, that continued down the leg of the model, making her part robot, part ancient Byzantine ceiling. A little felt skull cap with a small spout of feathers completed the whimsy.
It was an astonishingly beautiful and intricate dress made by the creative designer of the storied house of Schiaparelli, Daniel Rosebery, and it stepped off the runway and into the real world this week, worn by Cynthia Erivo in London, one of the stars of the new movie juggernaut, Wicked. The dress looked glorious on a singer and actor who knows the power of costume and design to transform. It is a dress of dreams — one we mere mortals will never get to wear. And that's its point.
It is almost embarrassing to admit how much pleasure seeing this dress out in the world gave me, but then again, I am well past apologising for the pleasures of design, fashion, couture and the remarkable creations that have entranced us for millennia. It's not just me. The stolen Egyptian and Roman costumes and jewellery treasures found in museums around the world prove it's not just me.
That dress represents the pinnacle of an industry that here in Australia is worth $27 billion, and while our designers may never work at the level of true haute couture, the trickle-down effect in fashion is real, just as Miranda Priestly reminded us all those years ago: our "cerulean blue" version of Look 28 is coming for us soon.
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