In our Twitter post on the Spring 2016 Haute Couture show for Christian Dior, we wondered if a collection can be called haute couture, or indeed couture, without a designer at the helm. In fact, not only is Raf Simons gone, as has been widely reported, but his number two, Pieter Muller, is also out. Well, the design team at the luxury icon answered our question emphatically with a collection that was both true to the house’s heritage and to powerful trends sweeping runways everywhere. In short, the creative team stitched up exceedingly beautiful clothes.
Presented Monday January 25 in Paris, that collection struck a poised balance between the elegant and the risqué, featuring the house’s signature lightness of touch and sensual approach to women’s fashion, in the words of the AFP report covering much-anticipated show.
Staged at the Musée Rodin, the show opened with graceful monochrome ensembles featuring geometric necklines and cutout skirt details, with austere black overcoats flapping open to reveal diaphanous dresses festooned with ostrich feathers. Then came the miniskirts, featuring doodle-style black-and-white sketch motifs and floral panels. The hemlines grew longer, dropping gorgeously to below the knee in an asymmetrical fashion, and skirts teamed with nothing but an open blazer to give the look a raw edge.
The designers played with volume, nodding to the current trend for outsized coats with a camel jacket featuring structured sleeves, and a floral midi dress that flared out at the hips before tapering back in along the leg. A midi strapless dress with a stiff ruffled neckline was actually revealed to have full-length sleeves and cold shoulder blouses were given extra structure thanks to the addition of puffball volumes. Frothy hemlines peeked out from underneath sharp outwear for an added dash of fancifulness.
Monochrome prints were livened up with bold flashes of color for a modern edge while semi-sheer fabrics gave the collection the dreamy, whimsical air the house does so well. A quick nod to the underwear-as-outerwear trend meant that the final tailored, structured looks did nothing to quash the collection’s magical and very Dior-like effect.
In the end, the clothes shown were unmistakably Dior but, as Vogue reported, perhaps not entirely couture. Still, we look forward to what Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux, credited with the collection, will deliver in the years to come in what will hopefully be long and fruitful careers.
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