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Christian Dior Resort 2013 Collection by Bill Gaytten
In one of those occurrences that only seems to happen in the fashion industry, the future can be the past before it has even happened. This temporal shenanigans is the case at the house of Christian Dior, where in the same week that Raf Simons, Dior’s new creative director, unveiled his debut during the haute couture, the collection designed prior to that, resort, was also being shown. The latter was the responsibility of interim design chief Bill Gaytten, who is still doing the honors at John Galliano. In the meantime, though, back to the resort, which will appear on the racks a matter of months before Simons’s premiere ready to wear starts to show up. (Don’t worry, it will soon all be much clearer.)
Gaytten wisely decided to go back to the house codes for resort; a pause always makes for the ideal moment to retrench. He drew heavily on the Bar jacket, that cinched-waist, peplum-flared icon of Dior’s 1947 New Look for the basis of the collection, working it in scarlet wool (over a ballerina-style net skirt, a wink to the weighty circular skirts that were originally designed to be worn with these molded jackets) or in a dusky, pinky mushroom leather. He worked with the notion that the streamlined “bar” could be the linchpin of a modern wardrobe, variously partnering it with pencil skirts or lean pants, suffusing it with a sportier, more urban attitude.
There was plenty of streamlining here, in fact, a kind of reductive process so that the trademark silhouette, focused on waist and hips, was rendered in graphically patterned banded skirts and short dresses in bold, flat florals. What you won’t see as you click through the images of this collection, however, are some totally charming pieces that weren’t part of that narrative, and are worth seeking out. There was, for instance, a wonderful evening dress with a three-dimensionally embroidered bodice and a narrow silk gazar skirt with a panel cascading down across the hips. And two somewhat 1970s-era pieces were also good: a soft, bloused beige silk dress strewn with printed flowers, the kind of dress whose throw-it-on-and-its-perfect quality means it will stick around in the closet for years, and a geometric silk-scarf-style printed pajama shirt that could give you an easier, less constructed alternative to that iconic jacket.
Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories
Christian Dior Resort 2013 Collection by Bill Gaytten
In one of those occurrences that only seems to happen in the fashion industry, the future can be the past before it has even happened. This temporal shenanigans is the case at the house of Christian Dior, where in the same week that Raf Simons, Dior’s new creative director, unveiled his debut during the haute couture, the collection designed prior to that, resort, was also being shown. The latter was the responsibility of interim design chief Bill Gaytten, who is still doing the honors at John Galliano. In the meantime, though, back to the resort, which will appear on the racks a matter of months before Simons’s premiere ready to wear starts to show up. (Don’t worry, it will soon all be much clearer.)
Gaytten wisely decided to go back to the house codes for resort; a pause always makes for the ideal moment to retrench. He drew heavily on the Bar jacket, that cinched-waist, peplum-flared icon of Dior’s 1947 New Look for the basis of the collection, working it in scarlet wool (over a ballerina-style net skirt, a wink to the weighty circular skirts that were originally designed to be worn with these molded jackets) or in a dusky, pinky mushroom leather. He worked with the notion that the streamlined “bar” could be the linchpin of a modern wardrobe, variously partnering it with pencil skirts or lean pants, suffusing it with a sportier, more urban attitude.
There was plenty of streamlining here, in fact, a kind of reductive process so that the trademark silhouette, focused on waist and hips, was rendered in graphically patterned banded skirts and short dresses in bold, flat florals. What you won’t see as you click through the images of this collection, however, are some totally charming pieces that weren’t part of that narrative, and are worth seeking out. There was, for instance, a wonderful evening dress with a three-dimensionally embroidered bodice and a narrow silk gazar skirt with a panel cascading down across the hips. And two somewhat 1970s-era pieces were also good: a soft, bloused beige silk dress strewn with printed flowers, the kind of dress whose throw-it-on-and-its-perfect quality means it will stick around in the closet for years, and a geometric silk-scarf-style printed pajama shirt that could give you an easier, less constructed alternative to that iconic jacket.
Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories
Photo Credit/Source: Courtesy of © Dior
