A darker, more subversive Dior on show as 2017 cruise collection debuts in palatial setting

It was a quintessentially English welcome for a quintessentially French fashion brand: the rain poured down as a formal serenade by red-coated trumpeters announced the well-coiffed guests of Christian Dior at Blenheim Palace in central England, the 18th century residence of the Dukes of Marlborough. Neither the dark clouds nor the rain-sodden fields could detract from the beauty of Blenheim, one of the country’s largest houses and set in a park amid Oxfordshire’s rolling hills – a classic English landscape.

Kate Beckinsale, Alexa Chung, Elizabeth Olsen and a crowd of Dior-clad VIP clients enjoyed old-world luxury aboard the Belmond British Pullman train (rebranded the Blenheim Dior Express for the day) from London, then were whisked by a fleet of black Mercedes-Benz limousines through quaint villages to watch the Dior 2017 cruise show.

It was a coming home of sorts for Christian Dior; the label has twice previously used Blenheim Palace as the backdrop for haute couture presentations – in 1954 with its eponymous founder and with a young Yves Saint Laurent at the helm in 1958.

The collection unveiled by Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux, the in-house designers leading its creative team until a successor to Raf Simons is announced, showed some of the Swiss pair’s vision for Dior. They married shapes and detailing from the Dior archives with a contemporary, rebellious spirit. The accessories especially had a youthful, spunky look. There was a cleverly rendered blend of rustic tweeds, vivid jacquard that conjured 19th century paintings of horses and hounds, some very cool draped tea dresses and curvaceous bar jackets updated for the modern Dior woman.