The Word to Tweet Is 'Sweet'
By SUZY MENKES
Published: September 30, 2011
PARIS — There is a stirring in this fashion city of fresh shoots and new beginnings. And it is the Frenchness of this new mood that stands out, as though a generation were looking at Paris fashion and what it stands for today.
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Chris Moore/Karl Prouse
Christian Dior, by Bill Gaytten, spring/summer 2012, in Paris.
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Chris Moore/Karl Prouse
Sacai, by Chitose Abe, spring/summer 2012, in Paris.
The word to tweet is “sweet” — not meaning the American idea of “cute” nor the Japanese “kawaii” that contains the idea of attracting attention in a kooky way. Instead, there is an innocence in fashion’s mood for spring/summer 2012.
The surprise in shows Friday was a light-handed and delicate touch at Christian Dior , where the designer Bill Gaytten, the right hand of the previous designer, John Galliano, was expected, at best, to hold the fort until a successor is named.
A source close to Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, said after the show that the decision might not be made until the end of the year. The source asked for anonymity because talks are ongoing.
(The fashion pack believes it will be Marc Jacobs, swapping chairs with his current role at Louis Vuitton).
“Mr. Dior — and reinterpreting the ‘Bar’ jacket” of the designer’s famous New Look outfit, said Mr Gaytten of his aim for this interim offering. And that approach worked well, because fashion has been looking toward the post-World War II period and the revival of femininity in the 1950s.
What this designer brought was nothing of Mr. Galliano’s narrative ingenuity, the theatrically painted faces and mad hats. Instead, there was a version of “Dior Lite”: the new Kool-Aid being to take the familiar silhouettes and loosen them up.
A kimono sleeve on the jackets released the Dior woman from rigorous tailoring and skirts were puffed up in featherweight fabrics. The show, with a set of the gray and gilded salon architecture, generally showed a youthful, but classic, couture attitude.
Dresses were pretty, their rounded silhouettes broken by geometry: a mosaic of tiny square tiles at neck or even smaller pieces scattered above the hem. The light and airy feeling was carried through in colors like a watery aquamarine or a beige cascade of vertical ruffles. A dash of red matched the models’ scarlet lips.
After an over-the-top couture show, this was a pleasing outing from a designer who has the technique to create a bust line where the bosoms seemed to flow out of the dress — a rare moment of sensuality and a brief tick of fashion emotion.
This Dior event was low key, even if still held in a mighty tent in the gardens of the Rodin Museum. But the truth is that the fashion world already had fallen half out of love with that excess. This show was pretty and appropriate and no disgrace to the heritage of Dior.
