For most people involved in the fashion industry, the news of Belgian designer Raf Simons being named late on Monday as Christian Dior’s artistic director, wasn’t a Spring or a post-Easter surprise at all.
There had been something in the air for a few months and, when Jil Sander’s Autumn/Winter 2011-12 show was announced as Simons’s last one at the house, rumours started becoming more tangible.
Speculations were rife, but with Stefano Pilati leaving Yves Saint Laurent and with other big names including Marc Jacobs, Alber Elbaz, Riccardo Tisci, Nicolas Ghesquière, and even younger designers à la Maxime Simoens, being hailed as possible candidates, the guessing games became endless, often accompanied by rumours about some designers turning down the offer for reasons connected with the compensation or with binding contracts at their current houses.
So the guessing game for Dior is over and the post left vacant by John Galliano, removed last March after his anti-Semitic remarks in a Paris bar, is finally filled.
While keeping on designing also his eponymous men’s wear line, Simons will be in charge of Dior’s haute couture, women’s ready-to-wear and accessories, debuting in July at Paris Haute Couture Week.
Fashion critics are also eager to see the “battle” that will take place between Hedi Slimane at Yves Saint Laurent and Raf Simons at Dior this Autumn. This fashion battle actually has strong financial interests as Dior is controlled by Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and YSL is part of PPR, controlled by the Pinault family.
Now that the season of Galliano’s theatrical spectacles is definitely over, it will be interesting to see where Simons will take Dior: Arnault hopes he will modernise the house and bring it into 21st century, in a nutshell turn the New Look into the look for the new century, but we all know that contemporary fashion is about monetising rather than modernising, and, Interestingly enough, even after Galliano’s scandal and after two not very successful seasons by Bill Gaytten, Galliano’s former assistant, Dior’s 2011 results didn’t seem to be affected.
In fashion it’s easy to rise and it’s even easier to fall and, while Simons has reached at 44 an enviable position with virtually no enemies, the fashion press unanimously adoring him, and, above all, no apparent signs of the sort of mental instability that strikes many creative types, especially those ones working in the fashion industry, heading Dior is the sort of dream challenge loaded with the adverse power of making or breaking you (physically and mentally, if we believe Galliano blaming job stress and addiction for his despicable behaviour).
Sure, keeping a heritage house alive is definitely not easy and keeping Dior alive while guaranteeing it a steadily growth also in the Asian market in a globally unstable economy, may equal a nightmare of the worst kind.
Yet, Simons, maybe seen at times as an unlikely candidate, showed he is able to rise to a challenge and to be ready for couture.
His last collection at Jil Sander with its sharp and precise lines, its soft pink and cream double-faced cashmere coats, full skirted dresses with PVC inserts, full legged trousers matched with pointed, ankle-strapped heels, was all about a sense of controlled modernity, and almost anticipated what in the next seasons will turn into a fully-fledged Grace Kelly revival (director Olivier Dahan has not even started shooting the Kelly biopic, but the film is already making news...), with its consequent yearning for something gentle and refined, like late’50s couture.
So, despite being completely different from its founder, Simons is probably more fit to lead Dior than many other contemporary designers.
Simons is the second Belgian designer at Dior after Kris Van Assche (at the helm of Dior Homme men’s wear since 2007) and will follow Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré and John Galliano as creative director of the French house.
You could argue that this choice in a way is a step forward that brings the house backwards: rather than being more similar to Galliano, Simons’ controlled beauty and architectural constructions make him more similar to Ferré (which means that Ferré was probably ahead of his times…the curse of the fashion industry, you must be ahead, but not "too" ahead...). Bizarrelly, Ferré was actually an architect while Simons has a degree in industrial and furniture design but then moved onto fashion.
So will Simons be able to modernise the House of Dior while retaining his own architectural flair and mixing it with the proper and moderate degrees of arty, costumy and filmic extravagance (well, Dior did some costumes for movies and film stars and a soon to open exhibition at the Granville-based Dior Museum will celebrate this connection…), At less than 48 hours into his appointment there are already so many questions about his new life at Dior and the best hope is that he will manage to answer them all without succumbing.
One thing is for sure: there will be no more demi-God appearances in flamboyant attire à la Galliano at the end of Dior’s runway and this in a world and in an industry that do not need egomaniacs and useless displays of excess, is already something to be happy about.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
I love how you illustrate these ideas in this article. Your post is very interesting, and I enjoyed reading it
Posted by: party dresses for women | April 20, 2012 at 03:20 PM