Paris Haute Couture | DIOR Fall 2016 Couture

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

More To DIOR Love ...

'Christian Dior & The French Riviera'

"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.

&

'DIOR Cruise 2017 Presentation at Blenheim Palace'

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

Tweet

Share

Paris Haute Couture | DIOR Spring 2016 Couture

Everything was as usual at the Christian Dior Haute Couture show: the same venue, the sense of occasion that this storied house of fashion commands. The only difference, as the world well knows, is that it is currently operating without a creative director. Instead, it was a young team, which looked to be in their 20s and 30s, that ran out to take their bows at the end of the show. Collectives are very à la mode in Paris now, but it’s fair to say that six months ago, this crew never imagined they’d be out front, taking the credit for a grand show in a vast mirrored marquee in the gardens of the Musée Rodin. Nor did Dior’s management, which is now dealing with the interim between the surprise resignations of Raf Simons and Pieter Mulier, who was the creative director’s full-time number two in-house.

A Dior press representative names Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux as the heads of studio who stepped up to fill the void. They were smiling as they made a brief appearance before running off, and they deserved to feel happy with the job they’d done primarily of continuing the feeling that Dior has to belong to a younger, modern world. Simons began that mission, of course. In the hands of a more junior group, it became softer, more casual than their former boss’s theoretical approach a sensibility patchworked through a visual prism belonging to people who’ve grown up with Prada, Marni, Céline, and Marc Jacobs.

That’s not to say that they disrespected Dior house codes. While dispensing with corseted structure, they honored waist emphasis with fit-and-flare silhouettes, short sparkly dresses, and a couple of plain bell-shaped evening midis with asymmetric necklines fastened with bows in the back. The white “Bar” jacket, with narrow sleeves, flounced cuffs, and a sprinkling of jeweled lilies of the valley, worn over a black pencil skirt, slit at one side and fanning out as the model walked, read as the nearest thing to “couture” this collection attained.

What it skipped was a sense of grandeur or build-up. There was no ball gown finale to answer the hanging question as to what Jennifer Lawrence might wear to the Academy Awards though that’s usually arranged as a bespoke off-runway matter anyway. The bigger question is who will be brought in to take over the direction of this house. There is talent in the ranks of Dior, and it may be that, long-term, this baptism of fire will produce stars. Shorter term, the fashion world waits to find out who will become Dior’s next visionary leader.

Discover the entire DIOR F/W 2016/17 Haute Couture show at the end of this post & my Instagram-story direct from the show from this starting-point on @AndreaJankeOfficial - enjoy!

For all DIOR-Lovers follow my special DIOR-collection on Google+ 

with more than 100 editorials about the brand's latest news.

LoL, Andrea 
 

 The heads of the DIOR studio: Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories

Photo Credit/Source: The House of DIOR

Photos by Yannis Vlamos/Indigital.tv

More To Love ... 

'DIOR Fall/Winter 2016/17 RTW'

The highly graphic motif inspired several looks in the Dior ready-to-wear Autumn/Winter 2016/2017 show, which took place in the Cour Carrée of the Louvre Friday, 5th March, 2016. It could be found enlarged and transposed into pink and bordeaux on a silk jacquard coatdress. It also appeared on an orange and gray sweater, contrasting with the twinkling embroidered flowers on the skirt.

Tweet

Share