“I’m returning to Paris – a city that was my home for twenty years, where I grew up – to show my debut collection under my own name.
Shown during haute couture week, this is a prêt-à-porter collection. Yet it’s a couture ideology in ready-to-wear.
That means it is intensely personal, intricately worked, certain pieces are made-to-order, and it is all offered direct to the clientele. It’s about a relationship between me, and the women who wear my clothes. It’s about uniqueness and intimacy.
This collection is about freedom. It’s about reconnecting with what I love – color, cut, embroidery, texture – and rediscovering the Peter Dundas style afresh, and under my own name.
Showing in Paris haute couture influenced the collection creatively, also – how could it not? Inspiration comes from the baroque, the height of aesthetic indulgence – but although it is all precious, I wanted a new sense of ease that feels modern. It’s like the 1770s meets the 1970s. The Palais de Versailles meets Le Palace.
Each outfit is presented as an individual creation – a piece from a real wardrobe, the closet of a true Dundas girl. The silhouettes are a mix, as are the fabrics, colors and decoration. But in everything, there’s a touch of the raw fused with extreme refinement. A Dundas girl may wear an embroidered caftan over slender jeans; cotton voile dress embroidered with lamé; or a band t-shirt sequined into a mini-dress. One of the band t-shirts features a jaguar, taken from my own tattoo; another caftan is embellished with lions, taken from my family’s crest.
Along every step of the way, I’ve been personally involved. I’ve developed embroideries in India, overseen shoe manufacturing in Venice. I went to Rome, to work on our furs. I have touched every piece. This is a labour of love – clothes I love, for the women I love.
This collection is a proposal, a statement of intent. It’s establishing my identity, a new. This collection is dedicated to my girls.” -Peter Dundas
“Peter’s precise eye for detail among his signatures of cut, pattern, and of course, glamour are unsurpassed. I am thrilled for his next chapter, his namesake label and for its debut on Moda Operandi.” – Lauren Santo Domingo, Co-Founder of Moda Operandi
