FUTURE PERFECT Dior’s Pre-Fall ’15 collection spoke of utilitarian glamour fit for the modern-day Princess Leia. By Cai Mei Khoo.
For Dior’s first official Pre-Fall show, artistic director Raf Simons looked East. In the futuristic metropolis that is Tokyo, he staged an equally futuristic show, held in the city’s preeminent sumo-wrestling stadium, Kokugikan. Simons’s choice of location was testimony of the maison’s long relationship with Japan. At the Esprit Dior exhibition earlier held in Ginza were historical sketches, photographs, documents, and clothes that showcased Monsieur Dior’s fascination with Japanese culture. The designer’s imagination sparked during his childhood spent at the family home in Granville: Les Rhumbs was designed with Japaneseinfluenced interiors, a style that was fashionable at the time. “The staircase was decorated with large painted panels, in the style of Japanese prints, that reached the ceiling,” recalled Monsieur Dior. “These interpretations of Outamaro and Hokusai were my Sistine Chapel. I can still see myself, contemplating them for hours and hours.”
Of note were the exquisite dresses Princess Michiko wore at her wedding to Crown Prince Akihito in 1959. There were two evening dresses and one day dress created by Yves Saint Laurent from sketches by Monsieur Dior, using fabrics ordered from the prestigious Tatsumura (a traditional weaving workshop in Kyoto), the same suppliers that Dior had worked with from the early ’50s.
Fast forward to present-day Tokyo, a fleet of Dior limos – complete with cushions in the house’s signature shade of dove grey – ferried 1,400 guests to Kokugikan. Bureau Betak, Dior’s go-to set designers, suspended a huge metal grid mid-air, above a large square platform that was to be the runway. Artificial snow fell gently from the roof, evoking the sense of a ‘Floating World’,