Christian Dior RTW Spring 2013

Raf Simons’ hiring at Dior was not an human resources move taken lightly by his employers; by 3:15 or so on Friday, Bernard Arnault and Sidney Toledano must have been feeling pretty good about themselves. They had just watched Simons thrust Dior into a place it hasn’t been in some time, a place where clothes count as more than foils around which to continue the global expansion of accessories and beauty businesses. These clothes were exquisite, with that Holy Grail-fusion of currency and cool.


As guests arrived at the new venue in the courtyard of the Hôtel National des Invalides, a couple of things came to mind. First, how modern. Which should not be taken as a shot at John Galliano. When he started at Dior, Galliano brought something intense, masterful and essential at that moment; that it crumbled badly for a number of reasons cannot negate the importance and onetime relevance of his tenure. But seeing the pristine square white box of a pavilion against the day’s vibrant blue sky — Corbusier de la mode, anyone? — one couldn’t help but feel instant refreshment. The second thought: how strangely polite. People arriving as much as 25 minutes before the stated show time of 2:30 were — get this — allowed in. To their seats. There they found a series of spacious white salons named after colors — Salon Rose; Salon Bleu — all with multiple windows of various square and rectangular sizes from which hung featherweight pastel curtains. Suddenly all those black-box show spaces we trudge and trip through so often felt old and ominous.

But a well-run door and nice window treatment only go so far. A fashion show is about the clothes, and Simons’ were stellar. Here was not the lyricism of his emotional goodbye at Jil Sander, but a strong, confident entrée that blasted a big-picture objective: to state from the outset that unlike those breezy curtains, these clothes are not window dressing. These are clothes for women to buy and wear not only for big evenings but during the day, something with which Dior has long struggled. Simons strengthened the point via judicious use of handbags. Yes, accessories matter; there’s plenty of time to ply the audience with exotics. Dior is first and foremost a fashion house.

A fashion house whose founder was a renegade, a tradition Simons expects to continue — and not through playing to pat expectations. “I love minimalism. There will often be that kind of aesthetic,” he said before the show. “But it’s not the only thing, and that’s what this collection is very much about.” He cited a desire to break through restrictions as “Mr. Christian Dior” did with the New Look, and to keep the tone feminine and sensual. “He brought fantasy again, and the whole idea about sensuality and the female body…,” Simons said. “It’s a way of freeing up from a certain kind of restriction.…I think that me coming here is very much related to that, and [that’s] how I wanted to approach the collections right now.”

Simons opened with a series of smokings. Though they featured takes on the Bar and referenced his own couture collection in July, one might have read them as a tease thrown YSL’s way. The first three models out wore wide ribbons around their necks — an unfettered update on Dior’s use of chokers. Such were not the only archival references. Simons immersed himself in research and came away with a focus on pleats and on Dior’s Ligne A and Ligne H jackets. The latter turned up in a group of fabulous short coatdresses — he called them jacket-dresses — some waisted, others falling away from the body in that languid A-shape. Making them more than exercises in perfect tailoring: unexpected embroideries and flashes of iridescence in overlays or inset pleats.

Dresses came in LBDs (one featured a plain front and quiver of pleats in back) and in a more colorful, more decorated and more surprising range that referenced the Sixties without getting lost there. Throughout, Simons kept the surprises coming: flyaway veilings over lean dresses, a row of sequined floral buttons down the back of a dress; a geometric bar of embroidery at the hem. Evening featured thin black sweaters over big skirts in iridescent silk florals and conversely, shiny “cut-off” ballgowns over black. Either way, a delightful modernist distortion of a classic. Maison Dior is in good hands.
source credit:wwd.com