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18 | WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2010
From
Russia
with blood
PARIS Monday marked the start of a
French-Russian cultural exchange.
And in one of those symbiotic
relationships between fashion and the
wider world, Russia — its bloody
revolution and its early modernist art
— were inspirations for the early
couture collections.
For JOSEPHUS THIMISTER, an avant-
garde designer who moved off the
fashion radar a decade ago, the
harshness of his subject was in the
show’s title: ‘‘1915: Bloodshed and
Opulence.’’
Drawing from his grandmother’s
White Russian heritage and his own
Belgian background, the designer took
the same edgy stance as when his
deconstructed clothes were inspired by
the Baader-Meinhof gang back in 1999.
But these clothes, for both men and
women, were no longer decayed and
destroyed — unless you count the
painted blood splashes on khaki
military coats or a cozy white knit.
Instead, the look was noble and
upscale, with fabrics, even fur-
trimmed, to match.
There still was something raw and
bleak about these clothes, even the
defiant bright red cocktail dresses that
Mr. Thimister defined as dress-up
clothes for a ‘‘neurotic aristocracy’’
whose imperious behavior ended in
blood and gore.
‘‘We are still feeling the effects of the
Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of
communism; we have never
recovered,’’ said the designer, who
sliced dresses across with sashes and
ALEXIS MABILLE
fashioned evening gowns as if they
were made from crushed metal.
Is the Thimister message of
destruction as powerful now as it was
when it seemed like a rebel yell in a
smug, rich world? The designer made a
good job of this comeback because he
used his cutting skills to make both the
male and female clothes look
convincing — as fashion, if not couture.
The Alexander Calder-style mobiles
swaying above the blocks of red carpet
in an industrial garage created the
template of the ALEXIS MABILLE collection
that kicked off the couture spring/
summer 2010 season Monday morning.
The graphic work of Kazimir
Malevich and that early 20th-century
period of Russian art was the
inspiration for the clothes.
And how! Instead of digesting his
intriguing inspiration, Mr. Mabille
made the effect full-on, from the first
outfit in which a shocking-pink-and-
black pantsuit was divided by color
straight down the middle. Hair got the
same treatment — a different color on
each side of the part — as did shoes —
one scarlet, one black to match a dress.
Mr. Mabille is known for his ribbon
bows, which occasionally appeared in a
charming way, as in smothering a
yellow dress. So it was smart of him to
suggest that he had a less sugary, more
graphic side. When that story was
about cut, as in Bermuda gray silk
shorts worn with a square top — the
message came across.
When Yves Saint Laurent channeled
Mondrian’s block paintings in the 1960s,
it fitted right in with the art of the
period. Mr. Mabille’s idea, in contrast,
looked like a gimmick. And that was a
pity considering that he had some fine,
streamlined clothes in the show, not
least the wedding gown, deftly sculpted
in duchess satin. SUZY MENKES
JOSEPHUS THIMISTER
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRIS MOORE/KARL PROUSE
Dior: Hand of history
PARIS As the last raspberry silk ball
dress swept past banks of roses at the
CHRISTIAN DIOR show on Monday, Kylie
Minogue heaved a reluctant but satis-
fied sigh.
‘‘Now we have to go back to the real
world,’’ she said.
That feeling of a film fading or a fairy
tale ending has never seemed so power-
ful and elegiac at this fashion house as it
did after the poetic parade that John
Galliano sent out on Monday.
If haute couture has a more glorious
past than future, then why not celebrate
an earlier era — one in which women
trotted through dressage, riding side-
saddle, looking crisp but sensual under
top hats, thick hair caught in a veiled
bun and long skirts artfully draped as if
blowing in the wind?
Or when aristocratic ladies in lacy
dresses shaded their heads in pretty
hats on a sunny afternoon?
‘‘It was Charles James,’’ said the de-
signer, describing his epiphany as he
read that Christian Dior, a fashion star
of the 1940s and ’50s, had been inspired
by the Belle Epoque clothes of the Brit-
ish-born couturier.
A Galliano dream is a wondrous
thing: Each petal of embroidered silk
SUZY MENKES special report
CHRISTIAN DIOR
trembling on a bodice and each cluster
of beading envisioned by the designer
had been turned over to the ateliers,
where the hand workers interpreted his
imagination.
The colors alone, seen through the
eyes of a 1930 and ’40s American social-
ite, Millicent Rogers, were artistic: rain-
washed sky blue and beige; pink and sil-
ver; mud brown tulle illuminated with
gold; olive, cherry red and mauve.
This Dior collection was beautiful, el-
egant, sparky in the taut tailoring of the
riding clothes and luscious in the swish-
ing skirts. There was nothing equivocal
or compromising: It was the haute-est
of couture.
Yet for all his genius, Mr. Galliano re-
fuses to click on the modern world’s re-
set button or drag his icons to a new
place.
This spring/summer collection was
more of the same hyper-romantic image
of historical prettiness, with an under-
current of sexuality. You could argue
that Dior has many other ready-to-wear
and inter-season collections — one
showing this very week — where the
clothes do not require women to be
helped up the stairs by three men bear-
ing the weight of 3,500 meters, or almost
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
3,830 yards, of lace.
Fashion needs emotion to both seduce
and inspire and Mr Galliano delivers
that with passion.
From those miraculous hats (for
which the milliner Stephen Jones has
just received an Order of the British
Empire from Queen Elizabeth II) to
shoes with carved heels and a frame of
pearls, the show displayed the essence
of haute couture.
But its focus is on a world that no
longer exists.
Of course, Dior needs to remember its
heritage — and that has been a tenet of
the house since it was bought by Bern-
ard Arnault in 1984, although the LVMH
chairman, mourning the death of his fa-
ther last week, did not attend the show.
An unexpected front-row guest was
Pierre Cardin, 87, who said that he has
been recording his memories of work-
ing at Dior for the house archives.
Anybody in the enfilade of dove gray
salons, where Christian Dior himself
once trod, could feel the hand of history.
Yet it would be a fine thing if Mr. Gal-
liano could just once make the starting
point of Dior couture not fashion’s sweet
memories but a clean sheet of paper on
which he writes 2010. SUZY MENKES
DIOR CHRISTAL
Sapphire crystal & diamonds
WWW.DIOR.COM
Fantastic
unicorn
PARIS The thinning ranks of haute
couture are bolstered this season by
accessories. Jewelry houses on the
Place Vendôme will have displays on
Thursday to compliment high-fashion
shows.
The shoemaker ROGER VIVIER, which
has long been associated with couture,
has taken a new lease on life with its
artistic and imaginative designer,
Bruno Frisoni.
Taking as inspiration the period
when women began to reject corsets
and embrace an emerging modernism,
the Vivier couture collection included a
purse frilly with lingerie, contrasting
with a roughly sanded crocodile bag.
The most striking piece was a unicorn
shoe (below) with its horn made of
feathers by Lemarié, haute couture’s
prince of plumes. SUZY MENKES
ROGER VIVIER
Project
Makeover
PARIS What do a T-shirt from the
actress Tilda Swinton, a set of pajamas
from the designer Alber Elbaz and a
military jacket from the musician
Peter Doherty have in common?
They were all pieces of clothing given
to ANNE VALÉRIE HASH for her spring/
summer 2010 couture collection. In her
hands, these items morphed into a
jacket in black duchess satin, a tuxedo
jumpsuit in textured matte sequins and
a man’s rock ’n’ roll T-shirt with gold
cording dripping down the front.
The show may have included other
elements but the resulting collection
was entirely the designer’s oeuvre. The
fluid pants with twisted legs, the all-in-
one overalls and the use of liquid-effect
organza and iridescent sequins have
become hallmarks of the French brand.
Perhaps Ms. Hash has discovered a
viable future for haute couture, one in
which the collaboration between a
designer and the client starts with the
client’s inspiration. JESSICA MICHAULT
ANNE VALERIE HA SH