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July 07, 2005
Linda Evangelista Has Still Got it And So Does John Galliano For Christian Dior
Linda Evangelista walks the runway for the Dior Couture 2006 Spring Collection on display in Paris
Part Tim Burton, part centennial celebration, part technical tour de force and, above all, part brilliant display of beautiful clothes,
Wednesday's haute couture collection by John Galliano for Christian Dior will go down in fashion history as one of those fashion moments of rare and outlandish beauty.
Opening and closing with a Burtonian thunderstorm lit backdrop, horse drawn carriage and coachman, first exited by Erin O'Connor who appeared in superlative embroidered tulle dress in faded gray, and lastly with Galliano himself in a raver meets Peruvian peasant get-up, this show had the audience of some 1,500 on the edge of their seats throughout.
Let's start by awarding a shiny medal to Bureau Betak, the production company which created the opulently wrecked runway consisting of black sand, ivy covered decayed statures and fallen chandeliers covered in spiderwebs, i.e. reminiscent of this critic's favorite ever fashion show, Galliano's early nineties "comeback" capsule collection in Sao Schlumberger's St. Germain townhouse.
Next, a huge pat on the back for DJ Jeremy Healy, whose funeral pre-show music and bizarre mixing of Latin American flutes and bombastic orchestral works perfectly set the scene.
But, clearly, the hero of the piece was Galliano himself, whose elegantly penned note in the program made clear the homage to Dior's New Look and his unique sense of construction to us lesser mortals.
A recent visit to Peru, John explained, revealed "surprising similarities in the famous silhouette of Dior's New Look and traditional Peruvian dress," leading to an exploration into construction and the utterly brilliant idea of creating a "trompe l'oeil nude corset." That sounds complicated, and it was, but the result was a remarkable series of garments where the corset construction was seen through tulle and taffeta, creating a stunning lesson in fashion forms and some truly memorable images.
One series of five looks was simply entitled "the making of a dress," where degrade taffeta or flesh colored tulle were swathed around the corset, an effect which drew oooohs and ahs from the mega chic crowd that included Drew Barrymore, Dita von Teese and Charlize Theron sitting beside Dior's owner Bernard Arnault.
"I'm obliged to follow certain rules of the architecture of fashion," explained Christian Dior himself in an old radio interview, a crafty piece of sampling on the excellent soundtrack. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Dior's birth.
Dior's famed 1947 New Look collection was given a new spin with distinctive mélanges of Peruvian flower embroidery and multicolored raffia. Later, a grouping of five "Debutantes" looks, while elegant, were also a wonderful takeoff of Cecil Beaton's photos of British Society including the late Princess Margaret.
But the highlight for many, were seven "Hollywood" outfits with names like Ava, Ginger and Rita, worn by iconic models like Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Shalom Harlow, in a great mixture of tongue-in-cheek humor and high glamour.
There was a time when certain French souls contested Galliano's freak show staging and over-the-top choice of makeup. But after Wednesday, Galliano can only be judged as Dior's most legitimate successor – no mean claim given that Yves Saint Laurent and Gianfranco Ferre were also couturiers at Dior.
And in a moment of striking irony, this was a huge triumph by a British designer for a great French brand, staged in the Polo Club of Paris just minutes after the Olympic Committee announced that London and not Paris had been awarded the 2012 games.
Posted by Stephen at July 7, 2005 10:31 PM
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