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)