The dramas of fashion! Since Raf Simons quit Christian Dior so suddenly last October, the two understudies Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux, who stepped up to caretake the design direction, have been managing it with unflustered aplomb. The potential for things going terribly wrong was high, but they didn’t revert to a paralyzed dullness in the face if the enormity of the task, or resort to an unhappy repetition-by-rote of what Simons had been doing. The Fall-Winter couture collection was a typical example of their non-uptight approach to producing what a youngish woman might want to buy from Christian Dior—a feminine but, thankfully, not jolie madame collection in black and white.
Inevitably, it was loosely based on the silhouette of Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look Bar jacket and crinolined skirt, but without anachronistic corseting or frothy tulle petticoats. Instead, the impression was of relaxed black taffeta dresses, a concentration on full skirts, tops flowing out to traily trains, and smatterings of gold and silver embroidery. The official line was that the collection was meant to emphasize the work of the Dior ateliers—the part of the house that provides the continuity of skills crucial to a couture house, no matter which designers are coming and going. To tell the truth, this season didn’t showcase their abilities particularly well, as the unfitted nature of the collection and the flat Roman sandals made the whole seem more like clothes a young girl would take off on holiday than grand occasion-wear. That, of course, is understandable when the designers in charge presumably have little experience of the worlds that wealthy clients actually inhabit. To take the possibilities of haute couture to truly soaring heights requires the insights of someone who knows both the techniques and the lifestyles inside out. Dior is apparently about to announce the appointment of such a person. More drama will inevitably ensue. But before the interregnum of Meier and Ruffieux ends, it behooves the wider industry to acknowledge that this pair of Swiss nationals, thrown together in the Sturm und Drang of a house emergency, managed this difficult moment well.
