Raf Simons sent 76 looks down the Christian Dior Spring 2014 Ready to Wear runway. Metal, beading, cotton, pattern, color, black and white, graphic prints all made their way into the collection. Two nearly separate catwalks paraded by the front row: first came a more traditional march, and then a speedy metal raceway. There is no way the Dior salon of ages past could have held the sheer brashness of Simon’s spring women, never mind trying to squeeze the volume into a dainty space.
Yet, in that sometimes delicately flowered bravado comes exactly that which marks this collection historically Dior. As the line’s founder did decades ago with the “New Look” proportions defying wartime austerity, Simons turned the Dior signatures on their head in a sort of reverse atavism. The Bar jacket, updated mildly with a twist in the front, exploded in floral pleats from behind, as if a dainty grenade blew careful shreds in the statuesque silhouette. Club insignia and badges adorned strapless armoured ball gowns that a post-punk debutante might don. Those padded hips that, historically speaking, made the house the household name it is, were either also shredded in cage-like ribbons or the hips themselves poked through finely pleated pastels.
Those shreds and cutouts reveal the youth-centered designs typical of Simon’s own history and aesthetic. Dresses spoke literally – via phrases imprinted with story time references – to a new generation of Dior client. The popularized luxury athletic aesthetic made it into the collection, in the form of a remarkable boxy white jacket, voluminous periwinkle cable knit skirt, and striped sleeves. Simon turned a shirtdress, which might not otherwise have a place on a Dior runway, into a cleverly twisted and elegant version of the ubiquitous staple. Even the Dior shoe, lusted after for decades for its refined elegance, got a cheeky update with a sneaker shoelace smiling somehow elegantly at a one of the sexiest parts of a woman’s body, her ankle.
Images courtesy Style.com
by Alison Santighian