Christian Dior S/S 2016 Paris

[george5]

Well, unfortunately, there are people on the Fashion scene who share the same opinion of some posters here; wich shows why It has become such a stale place... "Okay, whatever, It doesn't matter how cold and souless Raf's efforts at Dior are and, why ask to him more ? Tom Ford is irrelevant, Hedi Slimane is a mediocre and the rest are just copying Ghesquière so let's lower the expectations..."

 

[dodencebt]

Another year, another season... And antoher Dior by Raf thread as the Galliano fans playground. Some comments are so transparent, you can see the real intentions...

Busted! We're all part of a Galliano-following club who meets every midnight at his place with the sole intention of bringing Raf down.

 

[Creative]

^lmao

 

[Salvatore]

Another year, another season... And antoher Dior by Raf thread as the Galliano fans playground. Some comments are so transparent, you can see the real intentions...

Sometimes i wonder if Raf is related to the Kardashians/Jenners...

This is not about Galliano. This is solely about people voicing their opinion of Raf not meeting their expectations of what Dior should be. People criticize designers when they are / have become stale in their eyes. If he put out something stellar - and I am not talking a drag queen spectacle of the yesteryears, but clothes that have some life to them - then you can say that people are attacking Raf just because of Galliano.

 

[Uemarasan]

I don't mind criticism. Criticism is healthy. Why are people so sensitive to criticism? Are we so insulated from negative opinion in our daily lives that we can't deal with it and have to resort to ad hominem attacks? If you want to respond to the criticism, talk about the collection and not each other's opinions. Defend the collection and its designer. Make a convincing case for it. Engage in constructive dialogue. We aren't 12-year olds here.

That said, I don't care enough about the collection to like it or hate it or have any kind of strong opinion about it.

 

[dior_couture1245]

Another year, another season... And antoher Dior by Raf thread as the Galliano fans playground. Some comments are so transparent, you can see the real intentions...

Sometimes i wonder if Raf is related to the Kardashians/Jenners...

Another year and another season and another Dior by Raf thread that anyone who happens to dislike Raf for Dior gets their opinion de-valued simply because anyone who doesn't like Raf is simply stuck in the past and is just a Galliano-fan girl.

Well - truth of the matter is, I am a Galliano/Dior addict, yes, but I'm also not an idiot...and the last 4 years of Galliano's tenure at Dior wasn't even good, so it's not like I'm pining after those days...we've moved past it. What it really boils down to is I hate was Raf makes at Dior! I feel like every collection, we all say "we LOVED Raf at Jil, but hate Raf at Dior"...what's not valid about that? I WANT to like Raf at Dior - but in my opinion, it's just horrible! It's dull, it's boring, lifeless, it's completely passionless....can we not let that be a valid, legitimate opinion? Or are we to continue playing this finger pointing game that anyone who criticizes Raf/Dior is stuck in the past?

 

[ChimyeeRong]

Actually I like it.It's fresh,young and beautiful. But I can't tell it's Dior when only looking at the photo without watermark. It can be any other fashion brand.

 

[Not Plain Jane]

some of it looked like christopher kane
the shorts are unflattering
the scalloped edges are so twee
raf's at his best with clean tailoring

 

[VersaceVixen009]

This is actually decent, and that's saying a lot from me because I really dislike Raf at Dior. If you look at the Christian Dior archives, you'll see he does really reference the days of Christian at the brand. But where he goes completely wrong is his interpretation of it. Dior is a feminine brand, not a clinical,androgynous brand. One can still be able to interpret the house into more wearable, modern clothes but still keep it incredibly feminine.

 

[frk-frost]

From instagram:

The “1947” charm featured on the collar reminds us of the year Monsieur Christian Dior founded his renowned house.

 

[Fiona3]

I find it interesting that they spend a fortune on elaborate sets and flowers and then the shows turn out to be so dull and boring. Not even the beautiful set at the Louvre (which I have seen in person and it did look amazing) saves this collection.

 

[Fotoholic24]

Up close, Raf Simons´s vision for Dior is clear
By Cathy Horyn

Crawling in traffic this week past the Louvre, I glanced in several times at the hillock being constructed by Dior in the Cour Carrée, where in the age before Rihanna the Paris shows were held in modest tents with wooden floors. Thirty years on, I can still hear the trampling of feet on the boards — a sound that, to me, militantly anticipated great fashion. Now the mound would soon be covered with tens of thousands of blue and white delphiniums, but in the interim it resembled an art installation or a Jurassic pile of poo.

On the day of the show, I thought to press a delphinium in a book, in anticipation of what incredible things might bloom here in another 30 years. But in fact, we might just look back at 2015, and realize it was also a critical time, when fashion visionaries split into two camps: those who are obsessed with form, and those who focus on imagery.

Raf Simons is a member of the former group. I watched the Dior show backstage, among the dressers, models, hair and makeup artists, and one or two photographers. From here the models, shaking off their chatter and ignoring their burning feet, enter the runway. Dior had constructed a huge box, its interior gleaming white, with the flowery hillock seemingly crashing through one wall. I had never seen a Raf Simons Dior show from this vantage and I wanted as much to savor the hubbub — the luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault giddily greeting Rihanna, who wore Dior couture and a crown of curls — as to see the clothes up close.

I pressed myself against a temporary canvas wall, hoping I wouldn't crash through, and studied the girls. Around their necks were chokers with a flat metal ornament, like a cameo, the ribbon ends streaming down their backs. Their hair was late Jane Austen: middle-parted, pulled over the ears. Apart from some black tailored jackets and striped coats in café-au-lait satin, the clothes were mostly in white cotton batiste, a material once widely used for lingerie and nightgowns. A year ago, Simons introduced a cotton sack dress, seemingly based on a Victorian nightshirt, and it set off an unlikely trend. Now he was using the semi-sheer cotton to make simple, scallop-edged dresses, over matching shorts, or sleeveless tops worn with micro-pleated silk skirts. Some sheer styles had tiny stripes in black with a flurry of embroidered black dots near the hem. The other new component was a chunky raglan-sleeve sweater, cropped and delicately frayed at the edges, and layered over the dresses.

For the past year, Simons has more liberally plucked ideas from his haute couture shows, and recast them in ready-to-wear. For this show, sometimes he took just a gesture, like a slightly oversize, knee-length black dress with pleating that recalled the sleeveless coats from the July couture show.

Simons has grown at Dior but, more, the house has prospered from his extraordinary ability to give it a sense of direction. His last few collections have been more history-minded than ever before, and yet they hardly look nostalgic. They sparkle with rightness. And it’s not the heavy history dramas that his predecessor John Galliano often gave.

Coming out of the show, I ran into Ralph Toledano, a veteran fashion executive whose cousin, Sidney, is the president of Dior. He said, “There are designers who have a vision and those who don’t. You can see the difference. Those with vision have a project. This is Raf.”

Nymag.com

#SuzyPFW: Dior - Victorian Underwear
by Suzy Menkes

"Pure and calm," said Raf Simons, creative director of Christian Dior. Backstage, however, the singer Rihanna facing off photographers in her blush-pink coat was not conducive to peace and order.

But on the Dior runway, where the designer's dexterous mix of knitted tops with soft shorts like Victorian lingerie, made the outfits seem fresh, relaxed and viable.

Even a fluffy coat, with smocking and embroidery on clotted-cream wool, seemed as straightforward as the dark tailoring based on the famous curvy "Bar" suit of 1947.

That date appeared on decorative chokers, as a subtle reminder of Dior's history.

Although Simons suggested that his touches of Victoriana were just a backward glance to the past while focusing on fashion's present and future, I wondered if there was more to the transparent materials, so subtly decorated.

Had the designer perhaps seen the compelling and seductive art exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, "Splendours and Miseries", about prostitution in the Belle Époque? Was there more to the transparent chiffon, the lingerie and the dainty shoes with bows at the ankle?

More to the point, can any woman step out only partially covered, without suggesting a deliberate display of flesh? As shown, the tailoring made powerful ready-to-wear. The flimsy, filmy base will surely be a tough sell at retail.

Yet what a stride Simons himself has taken since his first show for Dior with flowers smothering the walls! The floral element was still there as banks of deep blue delphiniums, but the decoration seemed less hothouse and more natural.

"A South of France landscape, like a lavender or a sunflower field - things that are very pure and beautiful", the designer said, as though he were drawing a deep, calm breath in a fashion period when, as he put it, "it is not only the clothes and shows, but communication and the Internet."

The collection was as significant in what it did not show, as what was on the runway, as soft shades of pink and yellow and some bold vertical stripes appeared.

There were no grand evening gowns, because that can be taken care of by Dior haute couture. There was nothing "Madame" style for Parisians, nor flamboyant for the international wealth-set.

Simons has achieved his goal: making Dior seem related to the modern world. With just a peppering of past, future and sensual depth.

Vogue.co.uk

 

[HeatherAnne]

Have those 2 ever given Raf a bad review?!? [Rhetorical question]

 

[Creative]

What's the point of titling that article "Raf Simons´s vision for Dior is clear" after 20 collections? It's an evidence that his vision is not (or hasn't been) entirely clear... It's like she says: Karl Lagerlfeld vision for Chanel is clear. Totally absurd! It's not Raf third show!

 

[Lola701]

What's the point of titling that article "Raf Simons´s vision for Dior is clear" after 20 collections? It's an evidence that his vision is not (or hasn't been) entirely clear... It's like she says: Karl Lagerlfeld vision for Chanel is clear. Totally absurd! It's not Raf third show!

PREACH!
I do think his vision is not quit clear...I mean, it's clear as clean. He cleaned Dior's past but the future is still a bit confused.

I want to add: What's the point of having such a long article for such an unremarkable collection?

 

[Marc10]

PREACH!
I do think his vision is not quit clear...I mean, it's clear as clean. He cleaned Dior's past but the future is still a bit confused.

I want to add: What's the point of having such a long article for such an unremarkable collection?

Well that goes for a lot of collections this season too lol

And can I ask why some of you don't think his vision for Dior is clear? Because I feel like it has been pretty clear and established since collection #1...

 

[Creative]

If I imagine the Vuitton look I get an image. If I imagine the Chanel look too. Prada's, SL's, Céline's... But Dior's is still a little bit unclear to me. I mean, of course he has some codes, but everything is little bit blurry for me. All I know it that it's going to be boring and sort of 'clean', but sometimes it isn't (boring yes, I mean clean). I really don't know what to expect for an upcoming show. The latest HC show was very weird, very... try-hard Dior. Like... how can I make this show Dior? Let's add some gowns! I really don't know, but maybe I wouldn't say, if seen separately, that many of the looks were from a Dior by Raf collection (maybe yes, idk).



The bar jacket with skinny pants and the 50's dresses from the very first collections don't pop up in his shows anymore... It's good he mooves on, though.

This show, for example, if someone showed some looks to me during NYFW and asked me to guess which brand they come from, maybe I could've said another brand...

And when I saw some of the Ghesquière looks for Vuitton (not knowing it was Vuitton or NG), I said to myself: What's this? I can totally imagine Ghesquière doing this for Vuitton.


Don't know if it makes sense.

 

[Fotoholic24]

A Journey Through Time and Space at Dior
Unexpected connections yield new visions at Raf Simons' "softly futuristic" collection for Dior.
BY TIM BLANKS

“Softly, softly, softly futuristic.” Raf Simons was quietly emphatic about the collection he showed for Dior on Friday. “With everything going on, I feel like going back to calmness, purity and romanticism.” By “everything,” Simons seemed to mean the ludicrous pace of fashion now. He talked about “rejecting immediacy.” That sounded perverse on one level for a designer like him, who has been celebrated for his ability to define the moment, but it also made perfect sense. You could imagine the burden of such contemporaneity being an incentive to seek a more tolerable alternative.

In Simons’ case, that meant a collection that was built on something as basic and timeless as white cotton underwear, although that scarcely does justice to the fragile finery the designer showed. A top and shorts in sheer cotton organdie visibly underpinned almost every outfit. Like a shapely black bar jacket, with a delicate pleated hem. Or languid, bias-cut organza dresses. Or the parkas that added a masculine note.

The effect of this was an odd combination of innocence and eroticism. The theme from Picnic at Hanging Rock, Australian director Peter Weir’s classic about the mysterious disappearance of some schoolgirls during a class outing in 1900, was playing as the audience took their seats, and that movie’s peculiar atmosphere permeated Simons’ presentation, starting with the massive, flower-covered mound inside which the show took place. The designer conceded that extravagant scale is now expected of a Dior presentation, but there was something quite mystical, almost pagan, about this situation. “The Holy Mountain”, soundtrackist Michel Gaubert called it.

Gaubert’s contribution was New Order’s Elegia, a long, spiralling instrumental that offered a meditative counterpoint to Simons’ clothes. The music’s notes of discord matched items like cropped Shetland handknits layered over more sheer organdie — their roughness deliberately jarring — an intrusive echo of another world. Maybe this was what Simons meant when he talked about the future: unexpected connections, yielding new visions. “A fragment of what is to come,” he murmured. Which suggests he knows exactly what the future holds.

Businessoffashion.com

 

[Lola701]

Well that goes for a lot of collections this season too lol

And can I ask why some of you don't think his vision for Dior is clear? Because I feel like it has been pretty clear and established since collection #1...

Yes about the first point. Even if the appreciation of a collection is really personal, that point is valid this season.

I think Raf had a mission: modernize Dior. For a long time, prior to his tenure, the house was lost with trying to recover from the wild days of JG.
Dior has always been conservative but the desire from the LVMH to compete with Chanel was so high that the collections became very dated.

I think Raf successfuly modernized Dior for this new decade. He modernized the idea of a very conservative 50's dressing in a couture house.
I wasn't a fan (and i'm still not) of his first few collections but i think that the idea of Dior "Bar" pant suit is the best thing he has ever done. And i don't say it because i purchased one...

But since that, i feel like he is lost. Ok his collections are becoming more and more personal but they are also more and more dull.
He proved us many times that he is a master of modern minimalism. And it was interesting to see his trajectory at a house where minimalism is not a part of a DNA.

In stores, i find his clothes very unremarkable. At least before, his bold color combinations were interesting.

I also think that beyond the fashion, the whole house of Dior doesn't seem to trust his vision.

It's great to hear Sydney Toledano saying that he has a vision but if so and if you trust his vision so hard, why is he not in charge of everything Dior?


The accessories are great but as for the clothes...i don't see anyone buying them.

 

[Creative]

Or maybe he has a vision but he's not very comfortable with that vision? So that's why he fluctuates a little bit? And he thinks he has to do certain things to fit in?

I personally don't think he's at ease with the Dior heritage, actually. It's not his 'style' of fashion. I guess when he was young he couldn't care less about the 50's and didn't really like Dior. He likes another type of fashion design... And maybe that's why it looks forced and not genuine. Or maybe it's the pressure of a big brand, the pressure of selling...


At Jil Sander he could do very different things but they were very him and very Jil Sander at the same time (though they weren't). He evolved. He didn't compromise. He did what he was feeling... He was free. Right now he looks incarcerate... in an ivory jail.

Maybe I'm overthinking.