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Dior collection blooms in city

By Caterina Bernardini | April 19, 2013, Friday | Print Edition

ONCE again Christian Dior has surprised Shanghai, as the only house of couture that decided to hold a haute couture show in China.

The big event took place on March 30 at Bund 5.

The 2013 spring/summer haute couture collection was designed by Raf Simons, the new artistic director of the French maison, the one who is providing stability to the brand after the disappearance of John Galliano. The event was certainly met with anticipation by Shanghai socialites.

At sunset, all the guests, wearing their best outfits for the occasion (most of which were signed Dior), started arriving at the Bund.

Big names were not missing on the exclusive guest list. From the famous top model Lyu Yan and Qin Shupei to the famous Chinese actress Sun Li, Shu Qi and Chinese top singer Na Ying.

There also were many Chinese models and actresses.

Among the guests were Sidney Toledano, president and CEO of Christian Dior Couture; Renaud de Lesquen, president of Dior China, and the French consul general in Shanghai, Emmanuel Lenain.

For the Dior 2013 spring/summer haute couture, Raf Simon focuses on the flux of the natural world tempered by human control.

Specifically, he wanted to represent a garden as the literal embodiment of seasonal growth and change.

Women were presented like flowers. The models, with short hair and glittery lips, were blooming on the catwalk. "I wanted to do a very self-explanatory collection this season," according to Simons.

"I wanted it to literally be about the season, to be about the very idea of spring," Simons added.

The clothing and the women reflected the passing of time of the season, beginning with the signs of early life and blossoms from the winter ground to the full flower and blooming of mid-summer.

Much of this sense is achieved through a concentration on the exquisite multi-layered flower embroidery that increases as the collection continues. It eventually builds to the full flower of the balloon-backed dresses, with a careful construction that belies a seemingly organic shape, with all ultimately controlled by the supreme craft of the atelier.

The colors are perfectly coherent with the concept behind them: green, pink, blue and a lot of orange.

Even the lines follow the natural garden topic. Silhouettes are in flux this season, seemingly finding their own forms naturally and yet all expertly tended to and under control.

Symmetry is avoided - layering is embraced, with silhouettes seemingly growing in stages. New fabrications are specially commissioned to give a sense of dynamism and life. Simple forms combine with complex constructions.

The traditionally distinct dressmaking and tailoring parts of the couture studio at times organically unite in single pieces. The garden is both the perfect metaphor and setting for the collection. Here, amongst the boxwood hedges and trees of a contemporary French garden, the models emerge and take their place as the flower garden, a literal embodiment of the Dior "flower women."

The shows was followed by a gala dinner that replicated the salons of the couture house at 30 Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

As the only house of couture to hold a haute couture show in China, Dior presented the quality, the elegance and the essence of Parisian style to a Chinese audience.

StyleHai


 

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