PARIS FASHION WEEK : Dior SS13

This was the big one. The first collection for Dior from Raf Simons. Which, to be fair, is a lot of pressure on a young designer - one can almost smell the caffeine, late nights and fear enduced haribo sweet sessions. Which is what I used to see fashion students doing in my college around the time of the degree shows. It could have been tacky and it could have been slated - which the last couture collection Dior produced - was. This was the one to watch and indeed have tickets for......

Mind you, Dior made an excellent choice in choosing Simons. He previously worked as a menswear designer and for Jil Sander. Yes, this is the man responsible for THOSE collections. So back to Dior. Dior for me have always been a love/hate house. I don't always fit the ideal of the Dior woman. This is a house that is so steeped in history that it seems impossible to kow hw much freedom the designer is granted. I know the designers at Valentino struggled with presenting their image of the typical Valentino customer and their own style.
So it was going to be very interesting to see how Raf chose to display his collection.

So it was back to basics for Dior this season. However, it was business as usual for Raf who has made a personal style of simple basics. His collections for Jil Sander were always the same. Simple yet classics.
It seemed all about the shape with this collection. Colors were bright and popped - again no big surprise there. However the black simple suits and dresses were stunning and captured the minimalism trend for SS13 perfectly. I wasn't nuts about the shiny fabric though. I appreciate that the moment of fabric was gorgeous and it had almost a neon quality to it but there was sopmething a little bit....meh for me.... I wasn't feeling it.

What would Dior be without gowns? I wasn't feeling the shiny fabric which popped up with print for the end of the show. I did however enjoy some of the other gowns on display. All in all, a great collection with some geniuine highlights. The theatre side of the Dior show seems to have melted away with the Galliano collections for previous years which is a shame in many respects as I love a man with a good costume! However with the Simons years we will hopefully see a more modern and simple approach to design.  I for one am excited about the new season!

TRENDS TO TRY

Minimalism
Color blocking
Shiny fabrics - if you must
Suits
Blouse-less sexy suit dressing
Mullet ball gowns (short in the front and long at the back)