While the entire fashion world froze in an anticipation of another sensational change in the chair of creative director of the most couture house of Paris, a Swiss pair of Lucie Meier and Serge Ruffieux, summoned to the rescue the “orphaned” Christian Dior after the “sudden” departure of Raf Simons, sharpens skills in their third collection of the interregnum. And do it more and more successfully.
If the two previous seasons were marked by a confusion, natural in the current situation, the fall-winter 2017 collection designers’ signature became clear, recognizable, and, not least, different from their famous predecessors.
At the backstage of the show Lucie Meier summarized: “haute couture for me is associated above all with lightness.” The «heavy» heritage of the New Look with its Bar jacket and crinoline skirt which they cannot escape, designers play up in a fresh, almost adolescent manner, far from the style of bourgeois ladies.
Rejuvenation of the house initiated by Simons at Meier and Ruffieux makes the couture collection look like a cruise one. On the catwalk girls defile in light sandals, more suitable for romantic strolls along the beach rather than for grand receptions. Their flowing layered skirts as if created to flutter on the wind.
And only alternating with them denser tissues and sequin patterns that adorn certain of the tops and dresses (especially good is an ankle-length broad black dress with open shoulders, embroidered with amber stones, as if sprinkled with petals tea roses), remind us of countless hours of hard work of the studio staff – an indispensable attribute of the haute couture. The collection is monochrome: created from black and white, the looks are intended to focus the attention on the cut, clean lines, the play of volumes and the combination of textures.
Photo credits: Christian Dior / Yanis Vlamos