In the first half of the last century, most of the France’s famous fashion brands were established, from Dior and Chanel to Vionnet and Lanvin. Even Yves Saint Laurent – the upstart – is over 50. For designers who are used to roaming freely at their own houses, those mighty traditions can become cages. However, today Raf Simons showed how the silhouettes of the past can look fresh all over again, who’s now well into his second year at Dior.
Having toyed with famous wasp-waisted, full-skirted New Look of Dior, Simons turned his attention in this spring/summer 2014 collection to the chemise-style sheath, the loose sack dress with a gathered cape back that in the 1950s, Dior launched. In fact it originated in the 18th century but Balenciaga acolytes claim Dior ‘borrowed’ the innovation from their man.
Now the Sack dress looked pretty good in Simon’s hands – midnight blue silks, light yet structured, fuzzy or in pastel guipure. Mullet hems looked better than they sound. As for the tuxedo suits, which are a twist on from the late 1940s Christian Dior’s bar jackets, they looked better than ever with worked into embroidered jump suits or Simon’s crisp silk trousers.
Mainly confining himself to a color palatte of some sugar almond pastels, navy and ivory, and rather than the rhinestone kind, Simon’s preferred surface embellishments was of the lasered, tone-on-tone and textured embroidered variety. Roger Vivier first invented book-ended with a blockier version of the Virgule heel, as freely admitted by Dior. Woman of Dior is becoming an intriguingly amorphic/angular creature.
Although admittedly the silhouettes were mainly A-line, but the fit issues of recent collections seem to have been resolved. But this seemed unquestionably both accomplished and new. To align Dior with a certain kind of star wattage, it seems Simons is on a mission. In cigarette pants and a backless long red dress, he dressed Emma Watson for the Golden Globes, last week.
He’s a modernist, in other words. In what the program notes described as ‘a blend of white angular modernism and biomorphism echoing the female form’, that’s why the show took place presumably. Like an igloo, it looked. For all red carpet warriors searching for a new take on formality – without or with the biomorphic femininity – the clothes meanwhile looked ideal.
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer Fashion Trends 2014
