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Christian Dior – Escapist Expressions

If any fashion show these past weeks said it loud and clear that we are in the age of escapist fashion it was the fall 2009 collection of Christian Dior seen Friday, March 6, in Paris.

If the last Depression taught us anything, at least aesthetically, it’s that people want to forget about their everyday blues, so magazine covers of that era feature woman as Alpine ski goddesses or fearless aviator explorers. Dior’s creative director John Galliano did not have any active wear on his catwalk in the Tuileries Gardens tent, but the escapism was as loud and clear as the grinding Laurent Wolf dance cut that climaxed Jeremy Healey’s dramatic soundtrack.

On the catwalk, Dior looks for autumn were heroic yet chic. Batik beauties in curvy, beehive sleeve jackets or tops, tulip skirts and Tartar princess spherical hats began a hike up the Roof of the World.

Covered up in coats with oriental embroidery, Orson Welles' femme fatales slinked from Ascot across to Shanghai. Beaten silver Nepalese pendants, layered over “Empire of the Sun” frocks caught the mood of elegiac summers, those of a certain gentility. A great ocre Astrakhan vest over billowing silver satin pants was an ace look.
“I don’t want to work today... I don’t want to waste my time,” belted out the final song of this splendidly presented show. The memorable hair, a Marlene Dietrich Expressionist look with a waxed skullcap of hairpins, was a striking coup by Orlando Pita.

Several score of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - noisily protested outside the gate of the city’s central garden. PETA’s presence notwithstanding, it’s probably fair to say that fashion’s elite appears to feel the storm of anti-fur feeling may be abating, and that their argument - that fur is a renewable material - is slowly winning more supporters.

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