Christian Dior HC F/W 12.13 Paris

[Deleted member 7575]

Is unsettling to see the attendees looking bored!

It's poker face to hide their dissapointment.

 

[pinkpooding]

The issue shouldn't be that he didn't continue the big spectacles of the past and opted for more "wearable" clothes. The issue is that he didn't do it an relevant way. I was anticipating Raf designing into a proper wardobe, banishing the stage costumes Galliano had been making, and trying to make couture a relevant and vital thing. But he didn't manage it well, it's not convincing.

I completely agree with you, I have been following Raf Simons designs at Jil Sander so I knew what he was like, and I wasn't expecting him to abandon his aesthetic to follow Galliano's extreme styles, but I was expecting some new interesting ideas, new take on Dior. I think some of the looks are just too eaxactly like vintage dior, and some that I did think were intereting, eg first two Bar suit were too quiet,,,i am sure he will find his foot in Dior, I remember Riccardo Tisci, the Valentino duo and many other designers that took over a house having to go through a period of criticism and adjustments but since Dior drama has been going on for quite a while, I think I was expecting completely resolved collection now that everything is settled,,,

 

[Scott]

jil sander? do we even know what jil sander is about. i don't understand that association. perhaps the last collection he did but jil sander but as far as its essence. no way! and i agree,i'm so bored with the HC debate....is it or isn't it. frankly,just because something is tailored doesn't negate its quality as HC.

personally i feel given the limited amount of time he had to prepare a proper HC collection,with all its painstaking,meticulous workmanship,this is absolutely sublime to me. it's classic dior with a twist. it's nice to see a reflection of the master and the skill level raf can employ compared with his usual unorthodox approach. the guy has immense range,imo. it's also quite lovely to see the focus on the work for a change as opposed to the spectacle that HC has seemingly become more known for,these days....particularly from its own predecessor.

 

[disco54]

There is nothing sublime about this, I like raf's work but come on he is soo hyped by the fashion media, if anyone else had done this collection it would have been panned for what it really is dull and boring. These clothes are fine for RTW at J Crew but Haute Couture, gimme a f****g break!

 

[Scott]

^excusee....but i need no one in the media to dictate to me about raf's talents. i have been following his work since his debut in the mid-90's and i've always admired his work. and you can do well to lose the snark in your response,please. this is a fashion collection not a war.

 

[TianCouture]

It's poker face to hide their dissapointment.

I think that generally, people have their poker faces on at fashion shows...the venue didn't help. There was model lag between each look, which can be annoying...

 

[Label Basher]

It's pretty. I'm not dying over it. I get where people are coming from on both sides of the argument. It will still take time getting use to the change. It's the first collection so lets see how the next one goes.

I do though miss seeing some sexy gowns but then we have other labels for that.

 

[TianCouture]

There is nothing sublime about this, I like raf's work but come on he is soo hyped by the fashion media, if anyone else had done this collection it would have been panned for what it really is dull and boring. These clothes are fine for RTW at J Crew but Haute Couture, gimme a f****g break!

IDK what J. Crew you're shopping at, but I would love to know...

 

[pen6693]

Nothing said "WOW" to me like Dior HC used to. Very safe and a beautiful collection, but there weren't any long beautiful dresses like before.

 

[Marc10]

I think that generally, people have their poker faces on at fashion shows...the venue didn't help. There was model lag between each look, which can be annoying...

That's exactly what happened. You could easily see the impatience of the guests waiting for the next model, it was quite disorganized. Blame on the PR team, not the clothes.

 

[devilinanewdress]

Ugh, people really need to get over the fact that Galliano is gone and that Dior is going to a different direction now that Raf is the new creative director. I know it's a big change from Galliano's extreme, over the top hc collections but what else would you expect from Raf? He is a genius in minimalism and I think he did a good job with this collection.

 

[LabelWhore4]

If anyone bothered checking Christian Dior's archives, then you would say it's more Christian Dior than Jil Sander. Ugh. I think it would do better if people viewed the archives. Sheesh.

Even the coats are an homage to Christian Dior!! So for that, bravo Raf.

We don't need to look at any archives. I'm sick of everyone pushing this "heritage" "archives" nonsense. When Christian Dior designed those collections 60 some years ago he was saying something new. This looks like a basic collection that could have been made by anyone with access to Dior's vast archives. Its a pretty good ready-to-wear collection but not modern couture. I was hoping for a rebirth like the one YSL pulled at Dior; not the same silhouettes that Raf was just using at Jil Sander. No, we don't need frills and theatrics but we also don't need a ceaseless rerun of collections gone by. This isn't about Galliano its about boring couture clothing (hell even something truly hideous would have been more interesting) from one of the top fashion houses. I'm not impressed with the collection or the mannequins.

 

[LiuDat]

His first offering is an unambitious overly referential hosh posh of ideas.

I agree totally.

Still holding out hope for the future though!

 

[GivenchyHomme]

Unsurprisingly most of the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. Had this been Bill or any other Designer they would have been torn apart and ripped to shreds. There have been designers doing minimal couture like this for years and not once were they praised for it they way this has been so far. This is not revolutionary nor is it new. The construction is perfect and the tailoring is incredible, but where can't you go to get that? Theatrics are not important, the clothes are. His first offering is an unambitious overly referential hosh posh of ideas. I'm incredibly curious to see how Dior will justify the prices on some of these pieces.

I'm disappointed in Raf and even more disappointed by the fact that true fashion journalism no longer has an original voice.

 

[Creative]

Maybe Suzy is afraid of being banned from the Dior show again... Although her review was not that positive.

 

[Marc10]

In what was surely the most anticipated show of this Paris couture season, Raf Simons set out to recalibrate the codes of the storied house of Christian Dior through his own modernist lens. “It’s about changing the attitude,” he said, and celebrating “the uniqueness of the craft.”

The result was a quietly referential ode to the hourglass silhouette launched by the house’s eponymous founder in the icy spring of 1947, reinterpreted with Simons’s assured eye for artful simplicity. Christian Dior’s line was deliberately backward-looking even then—after the grim years of the Occupation, he wanted to recapture the feminine glamour of his mother’s Belle Époque ensembles, and to transform his mannequins and clients into blooming and blossoming and extravagantly womanly archetypes. To turn the iconic look into a believable modern proposition was a challenge that Simons accomplished in his own quietly persuasive way.

He began with a setting of fairy-tale beauty that evoked Christian Dior’s passion for flowers (he named that debut “New Look” collection for a flower’s corolla), calling on the Antwerp-based florist Mark Colle to decorate a series of five rooms in a stately Parisian hôtel particulier until the walls were solid with blooms, one the intense blue of massed blue delphiniums, others of yellow laburnums, or pink-tinged white orchids, whilst the Christian Dior room was a ravishing symphony of pink and yellow rose, peony, and dahlia blossoms.

Simons built on the small-waisted, roundly peplumed jacket of an ensemble in that corolla collection named Bar—a jacket cut by the young tailor Pierre Cardin, who celebrated his 90th birthday in the Dior front row alongside fellow Dior alums Jean-Louis Scherrer and star mannequin Victoire Doutreleau, and designers Donatella Versace (with her daughter, Allegra Beck), Marc Jacobs, Diane von Furstenberg, Azzedine Alaïa, Alber Elbaz, Riccardo Tisci, Christopher Kane, Olivier Theyskens, and L’Wren Scott. (Meanwhile the Hitchcock blondes Princess Charlene of Monaco, Jennifer Lawrence, and Sharon Stone faced off against Marion Cotillard across the runway).

In place of exuberant runway extravaganzas that have defined Dior couture since the ladylike days of designer Marc Bohan (statements that almost invariably had to be heavily adapted for the couture clients), Raf’s propositions were singularly wearable and showed that in a relatively short time he has managed to harness the talents of the fabled Dior couture ateliers to his vision of restrained contemporary elegance.

The accessories were telling: Stephen Jones, known in the past for his flamboyant millinery statements for the house, this time created the simplest of face veils to shadow Pat McGrath’s makeup of sky-blue winged eye shadow and blotted scarlet lips; jewelry was pared to choker collars of massed clusters of single-color gemstones; and the shoes, including an inverted comma heel inspired by a Roger Vivier design from the 1950s, were also understated, if often in a startling accent color that highlighted Raf’s idiosyncratic color sense—a metallic-blue heel with a candy-pink dress, say, or a short evening dress of black gazar worn with a shocking-pink heel.

And what of the clothes? Simons used pants in a modern way, pairing that curvaceous jacket (with subtly placed pockets and asymmetric pleats and folds) with a lean-cut trouser, or scissoring an elaborate ball dress, with classical mid-century embroidery, to mid-calf, transforming it into an exaggerated peplum again worn over narrow-leg pants. A strapless ball dress composed of layers of inky blue tulle opened to reveal black dress pants, for a dashing contemporary take on white-tie dressing, and a slithery evening sheath of scarlet crepe, open in back to reveal yet another pair of pants, showed that Simons is having fun with the flou atelier as well as the tailors chez Dior.

There was a lightness of touch to open-weave silks in dainty pastels, and Simons revealed his passion for mid-century art in the painterly drip-print satins he used for a wide-cut evening swing coat and a sumptuous Watteau-backed ball dress.

The fur evening dresses—a black mink bodice melting into a broadtail pencil skirt and an oatmeal broadtail peplum tunic over a pantsuit lacked the unforced elegance that otherwise characterized Simons’s approach, but there were embroideries of fronds of black bugle beads densely sewn on their ends and tipped with scarlet or chrome yellow that were an exquisite evocation of fur fronds. There were further quietly dazzling embroideries in the house tradition—notably the tiny organza blossom florets scattered in ombre formation over a full-skirted short evening dress, or the clipped feathers applied in broad horizontal stripes of ice blue and soft beige to another romantic ballet-length ball dress. There was subtle drama, too, to the dresses, with one embroidery motif and color forming the front, and another the back, for a dramatic exit.

“It was very emotional,” said Cardin after the nostalgic show, admiring the fraîcheur of Simons’s approach, and his decision to begin with a collection founded on a “classic base.” It was an authoritative, reverential debut, and promised that the ever-intriguing Simons will doubtless take us on more adventurous outings in seasons to come.

by Hamish Bowles

vogue.com

 

[TianCouture]

Can anyone make out what some of the models are carrying...they look like little minaudieres with maybe a cigarette holder---almost looks like a wine cork?

 

[Deleted member 7575]

There is nothing sublime about this, I like raf's work but come on he is soo hyped by the fashion media, if anyone else had done this collection it would have been panned for what it really is dull and boring. These clothes are fine for RTW at J Crew but Haute Couture, gimme a f****g break!

Thank god the body snatchers haven't gotten to you, too.

 

[Deleted member 7575]

I'm disappointed in Raf and even more disappointed by the fact that true fashion journalism no longer has an original voice.

 

[Marc10]

PARIS — Fashion is about dreams. On Monday afternoon, as Raf Simons launched his Christian Dior era in a grand residence in a series of intimate rooms, the walls of each covered in densely packed, floor-to-ceiling flowers — white orchids in one room, deep purple delphinium and multiblooms in another — Bernard Arnault and Sidney Toledano must have experienced the best kind of fashion dream: a dream come true.

In one of the most highly anticipated designer debuts ever, Simons catapulted the house of Dior into a new, vibrant era just as John Galliano did before him. Two-thousand-twelve seems a different world than 1997, today’s world one in which serious couture-hungry markets have exploded in far-off places, flush with customers interested not only in statement eveningwear but clothes for less demonstrative moments. Simons covered both exquisitely, with confidence, high chic and, most importantly, the sharp modernity essential if Dior is to regain its position among the houses that drive fashion — as well as in its rivalry with Chanel for megaluxury-brand superiority. After the show, Arnault called his yearlong designer search worth the wait. “I didn’t want to rush,” he said. “It was really a question of choosing the best person for the job, and he stood head and shoulders above the rest: the greatest talent of the moment for Dior, the greatest house in the world.”

Upon arriving at the posh venue, one felt that tingle of fashion event. Yes, there was people-watching aplenty, with Jennifer Lawrence and house ambassadors Marion Cotillard and Sharon Stone on hand, as well as a phenomenal multigenerational assortment of the supportive competition — Azzedine Alaïa, Marc Jacobs, Donatella Versace, Riccardo Tisci, Olivier Theyskens, Diane von Furstenberg, even Pierre Cardin and Jean-Louis Scherrer, as well as Alber Elbaz, who, at his men’s show on Sunday, mentioned that he would attend. “We designers today don’t hate each other the way they used to,” he offered in explanation. Postshow, Jacobs declared Simons’ collection “absolutely magnificent,” while Tisci called it “very Raf” and “the future of fashion.”

Tisci nailed it, certainly at the couture level. In this age of obsessive brand-building on the global scale, couturiers have a tremendous challenge. They must infuse the dream of fashion within a reality that speaks to rich, sophisticated, often-entitled clients whose expectations run as high as their thresholds for sartorial seduction. The couturiers must do it while staying pathologically on brand, the better to fuel their labels’ subcouture moneymaking endeavors.

A glorious reality permeated Simons’ clothes. Walking into a house and finding at his sudden disposal Dior’s vast resources both outside the atelier (that flower budget!) and within (the miraculously skilled atelier), even a confirmed minimalist renowned for his control might have gone a little mad.

Not Simons. Not once. His first look out said it all: a tuxedo featuring a Bar jacket of modified cut so that it looked more suited to a chic dinner party this evening than a 1948 fashion spread. The black tailoring continued all sleek and adult until out came a black bustier miniparty dress — “cut-off ballgown” read the line list — over cigarette pants, a look followed by a trio of similar pairings only with feistier dresses in lively, colorful embroideries. These signaled the importance of making Dior resonate as not only modern but more youthful. Ditto some amazing party frocks, each one a gentle ode to couture craft, one in the wide bands of pale pink and blue feathers, another in reed-thin strips of organza and chiffon.

Still, young actresses and young Eastern money aside, at its heart couture remains far from a girlish indulgence. Simons brilliantly handled the back-and-forth between sophisticated elegance and the younger end of his range, always with a fierce focus on construction and subtly of detail. Nor was that dichotomy his lone point of contrast. He worked with various weights — deep blue astrakhan and mink, and light-as-air pastel mesh for suits and dresses. Against his ample blacks and grays he flaunted his love of color — a simply flamboyant coat in “Dior Red,” a high-impact evening pairing of sheer T-shirt and skirt in shocking citron. Some looks carried their own contrast, featuring different embroideries in front and back, one side a traditional floral, the other an abstract graphic the designer dubbed “futurist.”

Throughout, Simons telegraphed respect for the house founder via his invocation of such archival wonders as the Bar, the florals and a range of gray tweeds, while keeping his feet and his message planted firmly in 21st-century terra moda.

The collection was not only beautiful but the work of an already-established fashion star imposing his own brilliant aesthetic upon an iconic legacy without a trace of intimidation. This allows Dior to move on finally and definitively from one magical chapter in its history — and at their height, the Galliano years were magical — with every indication of another commencing. Bravo, Raf. Congratulations, Dior.

— Bridget Foley, with contributions from Miles Socha and Joelle Diderich

wwd.com