Raf Simons' first collection for Dior enhances the founder's defining style
The new creative director talks about his quick transition and that jacket
In a room high in Christian Dior's couture house on Avenue Montaigne in Paris, sits Raf Simons. The signature grey interior is brightened by a large bowl of flowers that only 48 hours earlier had carpeted the walls of a grand townhouse for his debut show.
Dior's newly appointed creative director looks quite serious in his neat black shirt and tailored shorts. Calm and unassuming, Simons sips on a drink and expresses relief at having delivered his first haute couture collection. "So much has been going on, it's been crazy," the 44-year-old says, but adds with a twinkle, "actually, I am already thinking about the next one." He is referring to the ready-to-wear collection that he will unveil this month.
"That's often the case with me, it is a permanent flow," he explains. "I have learned to shut up as my assistants get very nervous if I speak to them about the next collection, just before this one."
Design is a continuous and evolutionary process for the Belgian modernist designer, and his debut couture collection for Christian Dior established a new blueprint for the house. Simons produced the collection in just seven weeks and quite simply blew everyone away.
The show opened with five black tuxedo looks: beautifully refined silhouettes that reference the iconic "Bar" jacket that formed the backbone of Mr Dior's classic 1947 "New Look" collection, updated with chic cigarette pants. In one instant Simons swept aside the bows and ribbons of the house's recent history, and took us straight back to the core years.
"Mr Dior was a supreme architect of pattern," says Simons. "He could construct something so perfect and yet he would often throw in a gesture on purpose to break that perfection."
This pared back look and the sculpted peplum shape of the "Bar" received an immediate nod of approval from Pierre Cardin seated in the front row. The 90-year-old former couturier had worked with Mr Dior and tailored the original "Bar" jacket. "I was honoured he came to see the collection and he was very complimentary after the show, and very talkative," says Simons.
The tuxedos, the fine cashmere sweaters with ball-skirts, and a series of "New Look" style Corolle dresses cropped short and worn nonchalantly over cigarette pants, with the models' hands tucked into pockets, expresses a fresh modern attitude. Simons talks about bringing a new dynamic and fresh energy to couture. "It doesn't have to be hands-off." He wants to make couture more relevant to customers' lifestyles today.
"Haute couture is not challenging enough to simply make a spectacle on stage, have it photographed and maybe see someone wear it on the red carpet. That is not enough for me. I think about what women really want," he says with some thought.
