The Shophound

ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD: Raf Simons Is In At Dior ...For Real This Time

Well, that settles that.

Just when nearly everyone had relegated the burning "Who will design Dior" question to the "Whatever. We'll find out when we find out" file, it was announced today that Belgian designer Raf Simons would immediately assume John Galliano's previous position as Couturier at Christian Dior. His first show will be the Haute Couture collection shown in July. That officially makes Simons artistic director of haute couture, women’s ready-to-wear and accessories collections. Simons will be Dior's sixth Couturier (that's in line behind M. Dior himself, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré and the disgraced Galliano), and its second Belgian designer as, for now, Kris Van Assche will remain as designer for Dior Homme. It's something of an odd situation as Simons was an acclaimed menswear designer for years before trying his hand at Women's fashion at Jil Sander and will presumably continue producing the menswear line he has maintained under his own name. One wonders if at some point he might take over the men's collection for Dior as he designed both lines at Sander. It also sheds some new light on the situation behind Simons' departure from Jil Sander, which may now seem less like a firing in favor of a return of the namesake designer than a convenient opportunity for Mrs. Sander to return to her own label when the position suddenly became available. Is that how it happened? Who knows? Doesn't matter now.

To recap the now basically completed game of musical designers:

Raf Simons is now at Christian Dior.
Hedi Slimane is now at Yves Saint Laurent.
Stefano Pilati is currently unemployed.
Jil Sander is at Jil Sander.
Bill Gaytten is at John Galliano.
John Galliano is still in seclusion.
Kris Van Assche is probably feeling a little nervous at Dior Homme, but there's an opening at Simon Spurr.

That is all.

Dior Selects Raf Simons to Replace John Galliano by Cathy Horyn (NYTimes)
Dior Names Raf Simons Its Next Couturier by Miles Socha (WWD)
Previously:
Dior Wtch: Raf Simons Exits Jil Sander Is Dior His Next Stop? (2.23.2012)

 

DIOR WATCH: Raf Simons Exits Jil Sander Is Dior His Next Stop?

The Cut and WWD have confirmed that Raf Simons will show his last collection for Jil Sander on Monday amid rumours that Jil Sander herself may once again rekindle the on-off relationship she has had with the label that bears her own name. His official successor is to be announced in a few days.

Naturally, the mind jumps to the possibility that Simons will take over the creative responsibilities for Christian Dior since he was breathlessly rumored to have been tapped for that position a few months ago, though he also turned out to be one in a long line of names that were supposedly all but confirmed for the job. At the time he was thought to be unavailable anyway, but now, Simons is pretty much the only person rumored for the job that is not tied to some other company (besides his own, of course). If that is the case then, yes, our long international nightmare of a designerless Dior will finally be over and we will all be able to sleep at night again. It also raises the question of whether Simons will also take over Dior Homme, a job for which he would be eminently qualified even more than for the women's side. This would push out Kris Van Assche, who has been well liked as the designer there, but has lacked the frisson that his founding predecessor Hedi Slimane was able to conjure, and Simons may be able to re-create.

Of course, Simons could be leaving Sander to focus all of his energies on his own label, and possibly launch his own women's line, which would not be an unreasonable possibility. We expect definitive answers soon.

Confirmed: Raf Simons to Leave Jil Sander (The Cut)
Raf Simons to Exit Jil Sander (WWD)

RUMOR MILL: It's Raf Simons To Dior! Maybe... Sort Of... Who Knows?

In the in the fashion industry's most elaborate game of crying wolf, WWD is essentially hollering from the rooftops that Raf Simons is thisclose to signing a deal to take over creative direction of Christian Dior, a supposedly coveted position left open after the ignominious firing of John Galliano after his disgraceful public meltdown last February.

That's great.
Of course, a couple of months ago, they were equally certain that Dior owner Bernard Arnault had worked out a scheme that would send Louis Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs over to Dior, replacing him with recently installed Céline designer Phoebe Philo, who would, in the least credible part of the scenario, handle duties for both labels, keeping everything in the Dior/LVMH family (Dior is not technically a part of LVMH, though the holding company Christian Dior S.A owns a 42% controlling stake in the conglomerate).

This , of course is in addition to the earlier, widely held assumption that Arnault was planning to transfer rising Givenchy couturier Riccardo Tisci to Dior as soon as he found someone to take over for him at the other Haute Couture maison.

Then there is the list of nearly every other designer of note who were said to be tapped for the job including Alexander McQueen's Sarah Burton, who was unlikely to ditch the label she helped its late namesake to build, Balenciaga's Nicolas Ghesquiere and Lanvin's Alber Elbaz, who are both said to be tied to the houses they resurrected from oblivion with equity stakes, and even ulikely figures such as Alexander Wang, whose high-end contemporary line is red-hot but far from Haute Couture in quality, and Azzedine Alaïa, who us known for his disdain of the corporate fashion system if not for M. Arnault himself.

In the meantime, design duties at Dior have been handled by Bill Gaytten, Galliano's first assistant who has presented one poorly received Haute Couture collection over the summer, but more importantly some well recieved ready-to-wear collections, which, as we all know, is the moneymaking part of Dior's apparel business. Gaytten has been thrust into an uncomfortable and undignified position as the only designer forced to audition publicly for a job he is already doing. The real moneymaker there is the fragrance and cosmetics business, which will continue to pump out cash regardless of who is ultimately installed as creative director.

Will Simons sail into the Dior job after all this speculation? Your guess is as good as mine, since he is reportedly in the middle of an unspecified long-term contract with Jil Sander, whose fortunes he has steadied to much acclaim after much turmoil and changing of hands at the brand. Even if he does take the job, we won't see his first work for Dior until the Fall 2012 Haute Couture show next Summer, leaving Gaytten to produce another Couture and another Prêt-à-Porter collection as a lame duck designer. On the plus side, it's possible that Simons could take over design at Dior Homme (he's certainly qualified) which would suck for Kris Van Assche, but would unify all the brand's apparel under a single creative director.

Imagine how how Arnault could have avoided all this mess if he had simply taken a stronger managerial hand in controlling the highly public self-destructive behavior John Galliano had been exhibiting for months before it all blew up in everone's faces at the beginning of this year. Or maybe he likes all the breathless speculation and attention.

Oh well, hindsight...

Dior Said Closing In on Raf Simons Deal (WWD)

KERFUFFLE DU JOUR: How Natalie Portman Got John Galliano Fired From Dior

Well, really, John Galliano got himself fired from his position as Couturier at Christian Dior this week. And Natalie Portman may not have been directly calling for the designer's removal (she probably thought she would wind up dissolving her endorsement contract with the brand) but in a roundabout way, she did just that.

You wouldn't think that a celebrity under an endorsement contract would have had the power to dismiss a designer, particularly one as well entrenched in the house as Galliano, but while the newly minted Oscar winner probably knew she was risking a lucrative arrangement by condemning the designer's alleged (and videotaped) anti-semitic behavior yesterday, Dior executives surely saw her personal response as a precursor to the strong likelihood that its customers would turn on the brand, not to mention the many retailers all over the world upon whom Dior relies for distribution. We are guessing that the story got much stronger initial coverage in Europe, particularly in France, where brands like Dior hold a special place in the pride of its citizens (never mind Coco Chanel's well documented affair with a Nazi officer during WWII). Portman's involvement, however, will have brought much more attention to the case here in America, especially on the heels of her winning an Academy Award.

When we say "Dior's customers" we are not referring only to the wealthy few lucky enough be able to purchase the brand's precious Haute Couture, and costly Prêt-à-Porter, shoes and accessories or the actresses who are dressed by the house for award shows and public appearance. We are really talking about the millions of people all over the world who splurge on Dior fragrances and cosmetics. Portman was hired to represent the fragrance Miss Dior Chérie, and the commercials, which began running last week, were heavily featured during the Academy Awards broadcast. This would serve as a potent reminder that companies like Dior (and Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, etc.) are, on the balance sheet, cosmetics companies with profitable side businesses in accessories and somewhat smaller clothing and couture divisions that may or may not be loss leaders depending on the company and the year.

It is sad to see someone so admired who has contributed so much to his industry go down in flames even of they are of his own making, but the fact is, the house of Christian Dior far more easily afford the loss of a celebrated designer than it can risk the goodwill of its clients and retail partners, even if it turns out that Galliano is not even charged and prosecuted by French authorities. The messiest part of the situation is that Dior controls the company that bears the designer's own name, and the resolution to that situation has yet to be announced, though the Galliano runway show for Fall 2011 is still scheduled for this Sunday in Paris.

Will the designer ever be forgiven? Who knows in these days of rapid media saturation? Chanel, certainly was forgiven ...eventually (or perhaps her memory is the happy beneficiary of a vast, collective, willful amnesia), and her reputed crimes were far more grave than John Galliano's. This incident may serve as notice to the many star designers working for corporate fashion houses that they should mind their business in public because they may be more disposable than they think.

Dior Ousts Galliano in Wake of Anti-Semitic Allegations (WWD)

OSCAR FASHION: Why Did Nicole Kidman Wear A Two-Year-Old Dior To The Oscars?

At this point, we all know the Oscars have become more of a fashion event than an awards show, and the red carpet arrivals are far more interesting than the show itself. There are a million people ranking who looked better than whom. We can't begin to enter that fray, and actually, nobody really looked terrible ...except for one person.

What happened to Nicole Kidman? Her white beaded Dior gown was ungainly and awkward looking, especially if you saw it from any angle other than straight on from the front. It was almost unianimously chosen by the innumerable fashion pundits as a major misstep. The strangest part of all: It was two years old! Kidman's dress was look #26 from the Spring 2009 Haute Couture Collection. Cate Blanchett's Givenchy and Michelle Williams' Chanel Couture dresses were both from the latest Spring 2011 collections (Looks #3 and #53 respectively, though Williams' was shown on the runway with an odd satin coat that the actress wisely discarded), and while host Anne Hathaway's white Givenchy was in fact from Fall 2009 Haute Couture (and, yes, it was shon as a wedding gown), she wore so many dresses, including new Tom Ford and Armani Privé, that it seems to matter less in her instance.

Designers and, more importantly, their public relations staffs are usually intensely careful about making sure their dresses are well represented at awards shows like the Oscars. It took only minutes after her performance for an email blast to go out notifying the world that Gwyneth Paltrow's onstage dress was right off the Michael Kors Fall 2011 collection runway. While we can attribute Kidman's (and her stylist's) choice as a matter of taste, we have to wonder why Dior would would have tossed a two-year-old gown to a major nominee often lauded as a fashion icon? It's not like anyone thinks she actually pulled it out of her own closet or anything like that. Especially considering the fact that Kidman herself was instrumental in promoting Dior designer John Galliano's first collection at the Oscars when she famously arrived in a green, chinese-style embroidered, mink-trimmed gown, wouldn't she have earned a bit more deference at this point? The house might not have seen this a blunder, but we can't see how it isn't. And, while they have bigger fish to fry at this very moment, wouldn't they have sent her some new dresses to choose from? Or at least some that looked better?

ACCESSORIES UPGRADE: Dior & Prada Shops Coming Soon To Bloomingdale's

Though the massive overhaul of Bloomingdale's main floor designer accessory boutiques is only about halfway finished, the store is boldly positioning itself to take on its biggest competitors once it is done. The most impressive change will be the addition of major Prada and Christian Dior boutiques as well as the just-opened Jimmy Choo shop to the already heady mix of handbags on the Lexington Avenue side of the floor. This puts Bloomingdale's on a better footing to compete with stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman whose limited distribution arrangements with most luxury brands left the East Side favorite out of the loop, until now. A big, expanded Chanel shop recently opened alongside newly refreshed spaces for Ferragamo, Marc Jacobs, Fendi and Chloé.

While there was a time when Bloomingdale's would have been first place a a hot brand would want to be seen, the store's prestige took a critical hit during the recession of the 1990s when management made a decision to trade down and de-emphasize its high end assortments. While the store hung on to sterling labels like Chanel and Giorgio Armani, it lost its place in the pecking order for emerging brands and missed out on much of the status "It" bag business as the century turned. It has been a long, hard fought battle to rebuild the store's snob appeal, and the store's ongoing renovations appears to have helped convince picky vendors like Prada and Dior that it has the proper environment for their labels. Sharp-eyed shoppers will have noticed that earlier in the year, cluttery counters were removed from the Lexington Avenue entrances, giving the floor a more genteel, elegant feeling while more aspirational labels like Burberrry, Longchamp and Coach got kicked half a flight upstairs to the cosmetics level. That leaves the lower section as pure luxury player that will ultimately be anchored by Prada at one end and Louis Vuitton at the other.

We are guessing that the new accessory shops will be completed sometime before the Holiday season, so we should see the reults of the overhaul in a few weeks. Settled firmly in the city's wealthiest zip code, Bloomingdale's should now have a lot more enticement to lure back the nearby customers who abandoned it for tonier options years ago.

Today In Mindless Extravagance:Introducing The Diorphone

Apparently, the folks at Christian Dior are unbothered by the economic slowdown that has most American companies quaking these days. To prove it, tonight they will be officially unveiling the Diorphone which they designed in-house and will be available next month in Dior Boutiques and select watch and jewelry retailers for a mere €3,500 which would be about $5,100 at current exchange rates - chump change, really, for the Russian/Arab billionaire types it is aimed at.
Or should we say their wives/girlfriends/mistresses/spoiled daughters? Embossed with Dior's signature "cannage" pattern, the phone replaces the usual menu icons on its touchscreen interface with the house's signatures like a tiny Lady Dior handbag, for example. Honestly, this phone looks too girly even for most of the gays, in our humble opinion.
One interesting innovation is a miniature "twin" phone called "My Dior" that can be clipped to an easily accessible spot and used as an extension when the phone rings and is buried at the bottom of your great big Dior bag.
It also doubles as a mirrored compact.
See? Ultra-girly.
We can't help wondering that if tech-savvy Hedi Slimane were still at Dior Homme a more masculine version would also be introduced. The wireless twin extension is actually an interesting innovation, and stems from the fact that the folks at Dior have developed the phone's design themselves rather than turning to one of the major manufacturers like Giorgio Armani (Samsung) or Prada (LG) did.
As in the cases of those other designer models, however, we find it unlikely that any American carriers will support the Diorphone, leading to a situation like Prada's where it is not officially sold in the U.S. (not even in Prada stores) and only available in unlocked versions from independent electronics retailers who may not be all that jazzed about selling a $5,100 phone with no discounts.
Dior CEO Sidney Toledano seems sure that mobile phones should reflect the more luxurious mindsets of their owners, yet we wonder whether even the wealthy will be willing to spend such a sum for a tech item with a short lived obsolescence.
Oh who are we kidding? These are people who think nothing of spending at least an equivalent amount on a dress with an even shorter life span.
Of course, if $5,100 still sounds cheap to you, there will be a diamond studded version for $27,000 (€18,000).
Perhaps they should just be sent directly to Saudi Arabia.
Dior Brings Luxury to the Cell Phone (WWD)

Today In Beauty Queens:Tiaras Cause Drug Addiction Hazard

This weeks Dior resort show looked more extravagant and star studded than any show held during our regular Fashion Week last February (with the possible exception of Marc Jacobs). While J.Lo, Charlize Theron, Christina Aguilera and a requisite Gossip Girl were all in attendance, the "celebrity" (and we are using that term charitably in this case) we find most intriguing is Sherryl Pascal, Mrs. New Jersey, American Beauty.
Yes, that's Mrs. New Jersey.....American Beauty. Why she was there, we have no idea, but she attended the show in full sash and tiara. Somebody loves her regalia. That alone is remarkable, but it's this quote from WWD that we find so entertaining:

She accessorized her peach Dior capris with a proud pageant sash and a giant Swarovski crystal tiara. "It gives me a blinding migraine," she said. "But it's nothing a Percocet can't take care of." Medicated or not, Pascal is willing to suffer, or make others suffer, for her fashion obsession. "I turned my son's room into a shoe closet," she admitted. "He sleeps somewhere else."

This s a woman who takes her title seriously, with a pride that makes Suzanne Sugarbaker look like a shrinking violet. We can just imagine her, a few years down the road, in rehab, explaining to her counselors that she never would have developed that debilitating painkiller addiction if it hadn't been for that damn tiara.
Somebody get her a soap opera.
And a martini.
Resort Mas Grande (WWD)

Disturbing Runway Trends: Raf Simons Chunky Feet and Dior's '80s Pants

We have fallen behind our usual keeping up with Mens Fashion Weeks for next Spring and Summer in Milan and Paris due to tragic technical difficulties, but now that we are once again fully recomputerized, we have slooged through most of them on line. Surprisingly, we haven's seen as many egregious affronts to reality as we generally expect. Even Prada, who an usually be counted upon for some thoroughly hellacious accessory, was relatively subdued. Oh, sure, there are plenty of looks that fairly scream "Please, somebody throw a pie at me!" but they were of the predictable sort, like John Galliano's usual dirty faced road warriors in underpants or Etro's dressed-in-the-dark pattern clashes.
We did find some amusement in Raf Simons' colorful boots with  short-shorts look from his hiker-inspired collection. They look like some sort of colorful robot feet from the the early 80's cheerfully clomping their way down a cartoon mountain trail. As for the short-shorts, we don't expect to see them catching on anytime soon, although now that the difference between shorts and long pants has shrunken to only a few inches, it would be nice to see that pendulum swing the other way just a bit.
Also worth noting were the billowing high waisted trousers at Kris Van Assche's debut at Dior Homme (lower right). It seems the '80s are a well that designers can't keep themselves from going to these days, but it's always a game of picking what to revive and what to leave to history. While he still showed plenty of skinny suits, Van Assche decided to break out with some looks that were crisp and tailored on the top and harem-y on the bottom.
Because that's the look we've all been waiting for.

Dior's Cruise Show: Cruel Shoes & Twisted Ankles for '08

John Galliano brought his Christian Dior Cruise '08 collection to a star studded audience - Charlize, Penélope, Dita, Kylie, etc.- at 7 World Trade Center this week. Once a minor showroom affair, this collection was transformed into a top flight 64-exit runway extravaganza with the best models and an elaborate set, and while the clothes showed Galliano continuing in top commercial form, the most notable thing about it appears to have been the shoes. It's not that they were so pretty, but that they were apparently lethal. Just look at them. Veteran runway walker May Anderson stumbled badly and needed assistance to make her way back up the runway, and model Milana Bogolepova fared less well, falling. Twice.
We aren't cobblers, but it seems to us that decorating the soles of stiletto sandals with spheres is nothing but a recipe for disaster. Why not try walking on a floor full of loose marbles? It's as if nobody noticed that this is not how feet are designed to work. We don't like to accuse designers of hating women, but, really, isn't this some sort of whimsical torture, watching beautiful, leggy girls try to balance themselves upon increasingly ridiculous footwear? Other than as some kind of twisted schadenfreude, How is that appealing?
Dior Cruises (WWD)
Christian Dior Resort 2008 (Style.com)