57
FASHION
2004 WORLD HAUTE COUTURE AND FASHION
Galliano Captivates Paris
From the Desk of J.D. Lacroix
|
|
Common
sense dictates that in order to make money, a fashion house should make
clothes that will be bought and worn by many. But at the court of John
Galliano, the fashion wonderland that is Christian Dior, common sense is as
foreign a concept as sensible shoes.
Photo:
Ancient Egyptian-inspired designs of John Galliano for Christian Dior.
Photo: Reuters
Other luxury houses have hit lean times, but at Christian Dior sales and profits have climbed steadily this decade, without a single wearable dress appearing on a catwalk. There has always been an air of fairytale to the John Galliano story. However, even by the standards of fashion's finest showman, Monday's haute couture spring/summer 2004 show in Paris was jaw-dropping. The show was conservatively valued at more than £1 million ($2.4 million). Each season, Galliano travels abroad in search of inspiration. Two months ago he visited Egypt, where he was struck by how the elongated shapes and exaggerated poses of the figures in ancient Egyptian art echoed the 1950s fashion portraits of Penn and Avedon, and the concept for this collection - Cleopatra comes to the '50s - was born. "Over the top" does not even begin to describe it. A typical outfit might comprise a corseted bodice encrusted with coral, above a vast skirt made of feathers dipped in metallic paint, with a hem of swirling gold tulle. This would be worn with a pink metal pharaoh headpiece, a golden beard, towering dyed snakeskin shoes with beaded anklets, and lashings of eyeshades. The impossibly narrow silhouettes of catwalk models were accentuated with perilously tight tailoring, headily high heels, 60-centimetre high hair sculptures, and outfits stretched tight from earlobe to floor. Sarah Jessica Parker, considered queen of the fashion world for her role as Carrie in the hit television show Sex and the City, was in attendance. But for once, no one was looking at what she was wearing. "Why isn't everybody jumping up and down and screaming?" she cried. "I knew Galliano was capable of elegance, whimsy, fantasy and history, but this was beyond fantastic; beyond belief. I have never seen anything like it in my life."