Welcome Back, Dior!

If there's one fashion wish I could make, it would be to witness firsthand Christian Dior's spring/summer 1947 collection. The elegance of it all, especially during a time when fashion was used to dropped waists and monochrome colour palettes, was a feast for the senses. The feminine silhouettes and distinct softness caused a style revolution. Unfortunately, during Galliano's tenure, the essence of the Dior house was lost in all the frou frou but thankfully, with Raf Simons at the helm, it has been revived and given a modern sense.

"Simons has a way of making the minimal alluring. That was his legacy at Jil Sander, where he designed for seven years since July 2005. Before that, he launched his own menswear label in 1995. Simons was adored by the global fashion industry for bringing clean style to the forefront. Bidding farewell to Jil Sander invoked a few tears but looking at his current work for Dior, it was definitely a beautiful goodbye.

One of his goals for the house was to bring back the essence of Dior.“People these days don’t know who Christian Dior is. For them it is Galliano. I understand that very well but for me the most essential thing that should be as clear as possible is that it should not be about that. It was never that. Theatrical, unrealistic, not for wear,” he says in an interview with Vogue UK and adds, "I don't see Dior in the street. His ultimate obsession is that he wanted women to wear it in the streets. I can see Chanel but what about Dior?" “The name Dior should symbolize the ultimate in elegance and refinement,” Simon includes, and that’s what he’s trying to reimagine.​ 

So far, so good. Simons has pinned it to the wall with great accuracy: A-line silhouettes, full skirts, feminine colors graced the s/s 2013 couture show. Christian Dior’s designs were coming alive again. Even in his ready-to-wear collections, Simons threads the designs with the core identity of the house: fall 2013 RTW took inspiration from art, which the founder himself was passionate about, and for the fall 2013 couture show, there was a parade of "memory dresses" that explored houndstooth, peplum, and other designs Dior propelled during his 10 years at the house. Simons brought back the New Look in its purest and most unadulterated form in years.  

Simon’s strategy also includes keeping up with the cultural zeitgeist of the times. In the 21st century, we see a reaction to the frivolous fashion of the previous decades. Minimalism reigns supreme. This fashion movement shares an umbilical cord with the current social climate of the world. As women ascend, there is “a need for upper echelon career clothes” which the aesthetics and silhouette of minimalism provide. Also due to technological advances and mass production, simple pieces make the cut. Ethics and environment now have a huge impact on fashion, as well as other industries, so purchasing pieces that last seem like the more practical move. Timelessness, comfort, and simplicity have been underlined as the favorable look." 

I can't wait to see what Raf Simons has in store for us this September...

To read more, visit http://deabanares.wix.com/thediorlegacy 

That Sartorial Crisp

While London's unusually blazing weather proves that summer is here to stay (for now, at least), the fashion industry is already looking to fall. Here's something that encapsulates the direction of the season... even though I wouldn't dare think about coats while my British tan is only getting tanner and tanner each day. -- Deanne xx

Fashion tends to be a wild, rambunctious circus. It is not certain who the ringmaster is – is it the designer? The media? The customers?  But everyone who takes part steps in the ring for ultimately one reason and that is to put on a show. A show that makes you as spectator either cock your head to the side and question the sanity of the designer, or look in perennial, magical awe, depending on your aesthetic sensibilities.

Seasons past have continually delivered oddities and fancies walking down the runway pushing street style to the frontier of surrealism. After all, isn’t this what the world of fashion is all about? A playground of all things unreal, imaginative, dreamlike? In a way, yes. But the line between artsy and messy is painstakingly thin that everyday fashion often steps over to the side of the latter.

And then autumn/winter 2013 happened. Thank the Fashion Heavens. The shift was so stark – yet so welcome - that my eyes had to adjust from the neon-colored, print-splattered designs to the subtler hues and cleaner lines. I may hear a collective sigh of boring and blah but dare to step into these collections that deliver calm and cool, simple and spare, elegant and easy.

The purveyors of chic minimalism took the reins: Céline’s Phoebe Philo with her creamy color palette and tailored silhouettes framed a warm winter season while Chloé’s Claire Waight Keller mixed British and Parisienne with pressed wools and tweeds dipped in navy blue. Of course, Jil Sander, slowly easing her way back into her own label, continues her mark of pared-down clothing with tight, elongated jackets and boxy leather shirts.  Even Carol Lim and Humberto Leon of Kenzo, known for their outrageous themes, gradually take on the aesthetic with a white blouse and a black midi-skirt pairing. Ah yes, the designers are clean-sweeping fashion for us!

Jil Sander makes yellow and black chic

Structured lines is the name of the game at Chloé

Purity reigns supreme at Céline 

Set this turn of fashion within the bigger social landscape. If anything, it’s a response to the need of the times, to the need for something more quiet, stable, and versatile in a world where the unnecessary and the noisy seem to forcibly grab our attention. We tend to bite back at the simple pieces and we do so because they’re difficult, but that’s where the mark of a true person of style lies - in knowing how to work with a neutral cotton coatdress and still manage to make heads turn. It’s easy, too easy to steal the spotlight with a ruffled paisley-printed mini-dress. With simplicity and minimalism, our style workings become fired up and the creative mind in us emerges.

With fashion’s inherent cycle, trends come and go but this one is as enduring as the law of gravity because it’s what pulls everything else together. The show may not be as dazzling, but pure luxury and understated elegance can never fail us. Ladies and Gentlemen, sit back and relax in the comfort of delightful purity. It’s going to be a great show.  

Photos from Style.com