If Raf Simons’s departure from Dior in October charted high on the industry’s Richter scale of shake-ups, there’s been next-to-no rumbling from the maison since. As such, the Pre-Fall offering qualifies as news (we’ll take what we can get). Created internally, the collection came unaccompanied: no front person, no point of departure, no theme or particular mood. But that doesn’t mean it lacked interest.
Arguably, there was considerable appeal to such an anticlimactic effort; it’s not every day that you find a mink coat treated with real gold worn beneath an army green trapeze coat. This tendency to double up while playing down provided a clever way to emphasize precision of proportion, and to communicate style over fashion. In a sense, the collection seemed to fetishize the mythic Dior codes less than ever, instead planting certain details—be it a tulip silhouette on a parka or a bejeweled bee on a shirt collar—to ensure that nothing felt ordinary. Jackets featuring dropped-waist basques, pants finished with broderie anglaise, wisps of lace enhancing the femininity of leather, and oversize mother-of-pearl buttons proposed novelty without risk. Notably, the strongest evening option asserted its allure from behind.
Regardless of the situation behind the scenes, the overall statement benefited from a particular sangfroid, the Parisian equivalent of “keep calm and carry on.” Still, for no other reason than the coats—all of them, really—the collection registers well.
