Futuristically Grecian: Ilja’s “Assimila”

Ilja’s latest eye-catching series combined the grace of flowing drapery with sculptural solidity. Some of the outfits displayed achieved wonders of asymmetrical harmony. Shining orange blossom was married to emerald silk and organza; curtain-like thicknesses were balanced by sheerness; ample folds were hemmed in with delicate, original stitching.

The atmosphere generated by this pageant of wind-borne beauty is impossible to capture on camera. Witnessing the show was like being projected into the future. The high-tech ambiance always present in Ilja’s collections was enhanced this time by colored lights inserted behind the material, making models look like entrancingly beautiful cyborgs. Footwear was equally sci-fi, and rose to the level of abstract sculpture. Thick high-heeled shoes were encased at the heel in streamlined magic emerald or layered ingots of gold, offering a consummate counterpoint to the dresses.

Ilja paradoxically achieves discretion and flashiness simultaneously and this contrast is added to by dresses that manage to look both long and short at the same time, by shoes that are both tight-fitting and outcropping, depending on your angle of vision.

If one or two outfits seemed to have been tailored to be a tiny bit drab in the name of everyday wearability, the breath-taking dresses amply made up for up this. One of the showstoppers was amazingly sculptural and alluring in its pairing of Grecian antiquity and futuristic colouring: the waistline was moved up to under the breasts, letting loose a bell-curve of silks, all cut to hang and hover in just the right proportions.