Dior: Fantastic folie de grandeur
by Suze Menkes, IHT
PARIS - For a right royal couture extravaganza, John Galliano takes the crown. And so did his models as they teetered out on pedestals of shoes at Tuesday's Dior show. Coronets, diadems and tiaras were tangled in a fuzz of hair as bosoms thrust forward in fleshy drapes. Dresses spreading from a corseted torso carried majestic emblems from the stars of the Austrian Empress Sissie to the feathers of the Peacock Throne.
The stunned celebrity crowd gasped single words backstage.
"Amazing! " said Riley Keough, who has launched a rock disk to follow her grandfather, Elvis Presley.
"Incredible!" said Elizabeth Hurley, clutching at beau Arun Nayar.
"Unbelievable! I want to be one of those girls," sighed starlet Katie Holmes, part of a Hollywood contingent that included Val Kilmer and Diane Kruger.
Ivana Trump cried "fantastic!" while Melania Knauss, the future Mrs. Donald Trump, shopping for a couture bridal gown, said of the lapping white waves of Dior's wedding dress: "It's going to be hard to top this one." Galliano's entire show will be hard to top. But then, we say that each season as he sends out another incredible costume party as an ode to haute couture. This fantastical folie de grandeur was as spectacular as they come, from the crowns and orbs created by British milliner Stephen Jones at his most creative, through the Gustav Klimt silhouettes, to the haute platform shoes. Here's how hard the hobble dresses and platform sandals were to manipulate: three body guards were needed to steer the helpless creatures down the steps at the end of the runway - after removing such trip-up clothes as sweeping sable trimmed coats and swishes of taffeta.
As a defiant 'Here I stand!', Galliano is the King Canute of couture. The detail and craftsmanship of the embellishment made these clothes instant museum pieces. This romantic visit to a turn-of-the century Europe of doomed royal families was the first "history" couture show the designer has done since he sent Belle Epoque dresses (peacock embroideries included) around the Bagatelle gardens seven years ago. Even then, the clothes were hard to take as a fashion statement. This season's mermaid silhouettes seemed impossible to adapt for the real world - except by abstracting the gorgeous cherub and rose patterns or controlling the great loops of fur trim.
Galliano's couture hand is surer now that he has got the ateliers working so beautifully with him. Yet his spirit is not so fresh. The designer said that he had been through Central Europe- Austria, Hungary, Turkey - to do deep research. The historical breadth was astounding, as the ateliers re-created Sissie as a Franz Xaver Winterhalter portrait or replicated, jeweled Prince of Wales feathers.
Yet one yearned for the effervescent, madcap magic of the menswear show on a pirate theme that Galliano sent out in Paris last weekend, rather than this florid poem to haute couture.
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