Disaya Desire

The Finale show of Elle Fashion Week was Disaya . . .there is no doubt of course my loyalty to this brand, especially as Eddy (my ex-assistant/head designer) is now working there, designing for the one-of-a-kind extremely talented Creative Director, Disaya. Eddy herself, is a rare bird, from the days of nsha to now Disaya, she is raw talent. Full stop. Truth be told though, it is the strength of their team, having dealt with everyone from PR to designer that makes the brand. I love Disaya's work pre-Ed of course, but now, the silhouettes are now more streamlined, more layered and nuanced, more mysterious, more architectural and has me converted,fully.

Disaya is 5th to the left and Eddy is 2nd

This season, AW 10, (Elle Fashion Week is a trunk show) to me, is about metamorphosis from bunny to black panther, from day-to-night, from demure lady to femme fatale in the most seamless and elegant way. I would confirm that this is no bluff on the part of their marketing director that it is about transition as it was Disaya who dressed me from NY to Paris to Pusan and it was pretty seamless as I was truly able to move from day to night, and feel extremely comfortable doing so. They are clothes that enable one to still be oneself, not revealing too much at first sight, but just enough and that is in the detail and really only when one moves.

To me this was Bunuel's Belle de Jour, it was Catherine Deneuve dressed by Yves Saint Laurent, and one is not quite sure if the woman is a doll or vixen or both. The colour palette moved from a snowy grey to a slate, to plum, to fuschia, to turqouise and back to black and cream. We always believed that coulour needs to tell a story, Ed and I used to spend hours trying to name the colours that we would use from the Pantone chart and at the end be pleasanly surprised that the actual names fit our moods and the theme. This to me was the case with this collection, it was balanced. The snow was a nice touch. I cannot help but think of Catherine Deneuve going to that manor in the middle of nowhere in that cape in that movie, tragically beautiful, asking for trouble.

A definite move into the future for me and assurance that there is a future is the way that the references did come through and a pastiche was created where one could see bits from Disaya's archives and techniques are also mixed and matched to create something distinct. Fashion does not exist in a vacuum for anyone, clothes are to be worn and what this collection was to me was testement from a Thai brand which is truly international that it can be thoughtful and subtle yet sell. This makes sense. Lastly, what was great with the collection is that it saves enough room for the woman to make up her own story and her own mind, I am not entirely sure, as gorgeous as she was that I would want to be stuck one-on-one with a Japanese sumo wrestler-type as Catherine Deneuve was in Bunuel's story.