 COUTURE FALL-WINTER 2025/26 “A SHEER DESIRE” Zuhair Murad's colorful homage to Hollywood's heyday calls forth the stars of American cinema, where he proposes all his signature looks for the Hollywood heroine, giving her options between gold and more gold; she truly shines even when dressed in black or ruby red and emerald dresses. Murad's signature asymmetrical dresses flirt next to padded shoulders, which are very stylish but have a touch of extra sharpness this season. His heroine is a fierce contemporary woman who knows her feminine strengths and is not shy to show them. Even in the most modest looks, the feminine sensuality is overpowering. The show as the notes state, is inspired by the 1930s and ’40s, his Fall-Winter 2025 couture collection elevates the silhouettes of Barbara Stanwyck and Rita Hayworth, offering them an escape toward a reinvented ending, one of choice, flight, and triumph. From the dawn of talking pictures, the moment her voice is finally heard, the heroine appears strong, determined, and captivating. She captures the light in stories where power resides as much in her voice as in her gowns. Yet, this power is swiftly taken from her. In Baby Face (1933), Barbara Stanwyck climbs the ladder using her charms, but patriarchal morality catches up. In Gilda (1946), Rita Hayworth embodies irresistible sensuality, trapped in a love that consumes her. In The Lady from Shanghai, her character, sumptuous yet manipulative, is doomed to decline. Zuhair Murad defies gravity. He reclaims the codes of glamour from sculpted shoulders and sensual drapes to dazzling embroidery, to chart an upward trajectory. The woman he celebrates does not fall: she shines, rises, reigns. The winter palette is sumptuous: warm browns, velvety beiges, enchanting blacks, ivories kissed with gold, fiery blushes, bursts of shadow and light. Every color conveys an emotion; every dress becomes a character. Sharp yet graceful tailoring sculpts embroidered jackets like ceremonial armor; flowing bias-cut gowns possess the lightness of dreams. Here, everything converses: velvet responds to tulle, mousseline whispers to charmeuse, transparency embraces structure. The ball gown, crafted in draped georgette, stands with the nobility of a tuxedo. And the fur? Ethical, synthetic, sumptuous, embroidered like a militant jewel. Embroidery, the beating heart of the Zuhair Murad house, reaches a baroque pinnacle here. Pearls and cabochons gleam boldly. Strings of pearls coil around the body like tamed constellations. Lace motifs survive only as damask patterns, evoking the baroque moldings of studio sets. A proud homage to Hollywood’s  great costume designers, Edith Head, Jean Louis Berthault, Adrian Greenburg, seen through a contemporary lens. Everything here evokes the poetry of a trace, of what was and yet continues anew. Everywhere, the couturier rewrites the ending into a beginning; the start of a story unblemished, unfolding beautifully beyond its close. This is a wardrobe of trompe-l’œil and the in-between: between power and grace, masculinity and femininity, the history of cinema and the writing of a future. Against old Hollywood’s patriarchal regime, which sought to guard itself from the beauty of its icons by condemning them to dull destinies, the couturier’s magic restores the glory to which they have eternally been promised. Zuhair Murad’s muse does not flee into the night. She moves forward, radiant, toward the final credits. This time, she chooses her exit.   great costume designers, Edith Head, Jean Louis Berthault, Adrian Greenburg, seen through a contemporary lens. Everything here evokes the poetry of a trace, of what was and yet continues anew. Everywhere, the couturier rewrites the ending into a beginning; the start of a story unblemished, unfolding beautifully beyond its close. This is a wardrobe of trompe-l’œil and the in-between: between power and grace, masculinity and femininity, the history of cinema and the writing of a future. Against old Hollywood’s patriarchal regime, which sought to guard itself from the beauty of its icons by condemning them to dull destinies, the couturier’s magic restores the glory to which they have eternally been promised.  |
