Since Raf Simons quit Christian Dior so suddenly last October, the two heads of the inhouse design-team Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux, who stepped up to caretake the design direction, have been managing it with unflustered aplomb. The potential for things going terribly wrong was high, but they didn’t revert to a paralyzed dullness in the face if the enormity of the task, or resort to an unhappy repetition-by-rote of what Simons had been doing. The Fall/Winter couture collection was a typical example of their non-uptight approach to producing what a youngish woman might want to buy from Christian Dior a feminine but, thankfully, not jolie madame collection in black and white.
Inevitably, it was loosely based on the silhouette of Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look Bar jacket and crinolined skirt, but without anachronistic corseting or frothy tulle petticoats. Instead, the impression was of relaxed black taffeta dresses, a concentration on full skirts, tops flowing out to traily trains, and smatterings of gold and silver embroidery. The official line was that the collection was meant to emphasize the work of the Dior ateliers the part of the house that provides the continuity of skills crucial to a couture house, no matter which designers are coming and going.
To tell the truth, this season didn’t showcase their abilities particularly well, as the unfitted nature of the collection and the flat Roman sandals made the whole seem more like clothes a young girl would take off on holiday than grand occasion-wear. That, of course, is understandable when the designers in charge presumably have little experience of the worlds that wealthy clients actually inhabit. To take the possibilities of haute couture to truly soaring heights requires the insights of someone who knows both the techniques and the lifestyles inside out.
Before the interregnum of Meier and Ruffieux ends, it behooves the wider industry to acknowledge that this pair of Swiss nationals, thrown together in the Sturm und Drang of a house emergency, managed this difficult moment well.
Direct after the Paris Haute Couture Week, on 7th July the house of DIOR was delighted to announce Ms. Maria Grazia Chiuri as the new artistic director of women's haute couture, ready-to-wear and accessory collections. Maria Grazia Chiuri leaved her role as Co-Creative Director after 17 years with Maison VALENTINO and 8 in her role as Co-Creative Director.
Discover the entire DIOR Autumn/Winter 2016/17 Haute Couture collection & runway show at the end of this post, and my special DIOR collection with more than 170 newest editorials on Google+ by ANDREA JANKE << please click here - enjoy! LoL, Andrea
Serge Ruffieux and Lucie Meyer
Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories
Photo Credit/Source: The House of DIOR
Photography by Alessandro Garofalo / Indigital.TV
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"Paradise is here." - Christian Dior
Callian, Montauroux, Le Lavandou, Saint-Tropez and Saint-Raphaël… Christian Dior had always been inspired by the sunny charms of the French Riviera. It was like a faithful mirror, a sister land that reflected and nourished his sunny soul.
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A few of the quainter ones were being trotted out by the natives who had boarded “The Dior Express” as it chugged through the Oxfordshire countryside, bound for Blenheim Palace May 31st (see my Instagram-story @andreajankeofficial direct from the show). It was bucketing down, pelting, chucking it down, raining cats and dogs doing everything in its power, in fact, to rain on the grand, sweeping country house location of Dior’s Resort show.
Picture by @andreajankeofficial via Instagram
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