Dior Resort 2010. Images from Style.com
At this point in the spring we are knee deep in "resort collections." I always find the concept of resort a little funny. Often designers are showing warm weather clothes intended for the dead of winter. of course the assumption is that their clientele will not be spending the winter in grey and icy New York, but instead between tropical locales (resort can be interchangeable with "cruise".) The whole concept seems so mid twentieth century to me. This season at Dior, John Galliano presented a resort collection that looked almost as if it had walked out of Christian Dior's office over fifty years ago. Not only did he mimic the hourglass shapes and completely accessorized (hat, gloves, handbags) looks of the 1950s, he obviously has been perusing the Dior archive. Furthermore, the collection is incredibly cohesive--inspired by Christain Dior Muse Mitzah Bricard-- it is obviously a series of variations on a central idea of shapes, textures, and patterns.
I like the acknowledgment of the houses heritage and history embedded in the collection and I love the way the wild hair and leopard vamps up some other wise prim and proper looks.
3 comments:
Galliano has definitely been mining the archives--and playing with the signature Dior "looks"--much more lately than when he first started at the house.
I think we need a new name for "resort" (I blogged about this last year), since it's not really--except for a few designers like Lagerfeld at Chanel, DVF, and de la Renta--about vacationing clothes to wear to St. Tropez anymore. Part of this may be because of the recession, but also because many of these newer designers who are now showing "resort" collections have a different clientele--one that is not part of the "jet-set" crowd--even if they do have money--enough to buy expensive clothes anyway.
Prior to WWII fashion houses showed four collections a year, spring, summer, fall and winter. Because france (and the fashion industry) took such a beating during the war, showing was downsized to fall/winter and spring/summer. A few houses would have small collections ready for the few people who had the means to patron couture four times a year. These patrons needed clothes for there winter holiday to warmer climates and voila! Cruise/resort was born. With the rise of ready to wear it nearly died out, only a few designer's created a resort collection, let alone presented it in a full fledged fashion show. In the past few years I think designers have felt the need to present more looks though out the year, especially since they get so quickly and blatantly ripped off by fast fashion chains, and they have taken on the resort season as a way to present more often. Maybe the solution is to go back to 4 times a year, corresponding to the actual seasons? although, i guess it doesn't matter since no one cares when you wear white shoes or patent leather these days anyway!
Yeah, and then there's global warming, seasonless dressing, etc. etc.
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