Ashi Studio’s dramatic show marked the couturier’s 20th anniversary in the business. It culminated with the spoken word: “Behind every mask is another mask.” Though that came as closure, it is perhaps the best way to consider this lineup, which was slyly multi-layered and couched in the visual language of festivities ranging from Florence during the Renaissance to the “Ball of the Century” hosted by Carlos de Beistegui at the Palazzo Labia in Venice, back in 1951.
On the designer’s mood board, images from that touchstone of mid-20th century spectacle, and later photos of Beistegui with Grace of Monaco and Sophia Loren kept company with a cabinet of curiosities, from highly-wrought crystal urns to 19th-century fabric swatches and imposing crustacean brooches. A lobster was a nod to Salvador Dali, the mastermind behind that celebrated fête. But it wasn’t the only extravaganza Ashi had in mind: Two decades later, Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild famously hosted the Surrealist Ball, at the Château de Ferrières, another one for the books. (Dali was there, too).
Transposing his idea of what those champagne and caviar-laden parties must have been like, the couturier nudged his models through the looking glass—make that an antique Venetian mirror, set into the back of the sequined, fringed bustier gown in look 6—and sent them on a journey tinged with nostalgia, old-world dinner bells swinging from their stilettos. Like a ghostly apparition from another plane, “she’s wandering through all these rooms of a chateau, trying to find herself, and her way back,” he explained.
She might emerge as cracked as an antique porcelain doll, rendered here as a sculptural corset in eggshell-white lacquered leather trimmed with white feathers. Or clad in an oyster-colored moiré jacket with sculpted hips and carafes in 3D-printed metal and hand-blown opaline where pockets might otherwise be. The lobster surfaced on a bustier gown made of peacock feathers and fringe. A short, white halter dress with a bell-shaped skirt embroidered with strawberry vines was pure theater, as was a gown made entirely of python, and a gravity-defying black number in custom-made duchesse satin.
Even so, there were also pieces that would appeal to more reserved types, such as a sculpted peplum jacket in patinated bronze leather or a pale blue evening coat embellished with sequins, beads, and cascades of pink topaz. That, the designer explained, was inspired by a ’70s-era Indian caftan filtered through an eastward-looking western gaze.
As the couturier steps into a new decade, he said he was preparing a new chapter, as in “a new state of mind.” In the front row, the number of clients dressed in Ashi Studio attests to his success. As for whether such over-the-top parties still exist, Ashi replied, somewhat cryptically, “that secret society exists. We all know about it.”
