Dark Mermaid

Photos : Delphine Royer

Mermaids are fantastic characters that have always fascinated me. When I was very young, I remember her Gorgons hypnotizing Ulysses and his crew to attract them against the rocks. They embodied temptation.

These half-fish, half-human women are icons of our collective imagination. Disney made them a star in The Little Mermaid, in the Netflix series Wednesday, they are nicknamed the Scales, in the Harry Potter books, they make your blood run cold. Finally, I prefer to remember images of them, drawn in watercolor, in the cult film Fantasia.

Adrian Colin an incredible glass artist

At Julien Fournié Haute Couture, and thanks to the support of this incredible glass artist, best worker in France, Adrain Collin, I was able to create my first Mermaid for the First Love collection, adorned with the colors of the rainbow, seductive and bewitching.

For the Première Creatures collection, this mermaid goes through the looking glass and becomes a poisonous character, with her sharp tentacles and poisonous rostrum.

three hundred patterns

She is adorned with jewels in the dark colors of the jellyfish of the ocean depths.

Tiaras, harnesses and pendants took Adrian Colin four months of work to create exactly the sketch I had sent him.

Nearly three hundred patterns were flame worked to combine the black crystal and translucent glass to achieve the exact shades. The harness of countless black crystal beads will serve as a showcase for the fragile glass patterns.

It is my friend Laurence who will lend her magnificent gestures to sew all these elements. A game of patience.

It is my first of workshop Jacqueline and me who decide to carry out a skirt with a train in marquetry of leather tied under the buttocks. Twenty-five mat black full-grain lambskins to compose this meticulous marquetry. The fluidity of the leather will raise the sublime body of Alexandra Martinovich who magnifies it in ecstatic poses. Nicolas Degennes will make her mouth black and venomous, as if she had bitten a sea urchin. Jack from the Neville Salon proposed a very technical chignon, in order to sew the tiara.

All in length, spidery, with cat eyes, Alexandra will be the most theatrical Dark Mermaid possible.

I ask her during the fittings: “Are you steady in your shoes?” “You realize that you can’t fall with this armor…”. It is the danger of this look that fascinates.

We know very well that we can’t wear this kind of thing in real life. But this is also the essence of Haute Couture. We are on the border between art and clothing. You don’t buy this kind of clothing to wear it, but to show it.

Three cult pieces

But for all those who would like to have a piece of this precious talisman, I have imagined three cult jewels with Adrian Collin.

Octopussy, where tentacles intertwine in an inkjet.

Manta, where an inkblot becomes a deep-sea animal.

Jellyfish, a fascinating creature available in two sizes.

Mysterious objects that play with light.

The Dark Mermaid bewitched the audience. Marc-Antoine Coulon immortalized her in a superb illustration.