How the King of Curves sold out to the Cult of Thinness
THIS is the dress that was once breathlessly labelled ‘better than surgery’. Zip yourself into a Galaxy dress by Roland Mouret and it would give curves to the woman who had none, while creating an almost cartoonishly sexy silhouette on those who did.
With fans from Scarlett Johannson to Victoria Beckham, it became an overnight sensation when it launched in 2005.
I’d even argue that this dress made Carol Vorderman’s career – her bottom practically needed its own agent after she showed it off in a petrol blue Galaxy.
Its creator, the broodingly handsome Roland Mouret, became the darling of the celebrity set, fitting ‘his ladies’ with their very own Galaxy.
As one friend who could afford the €1835 price told me: ‘You walk in feeling overweight and unworthy, and walk out feeling like a flipping movie star. But it’s not just how you look — it’s how it makes you feel! It’s practically indecent.’
The secret lay in the thick, elasticised mesh underlay, made from a material called Powerflex that was used in corsets in the Fifties.
It cinched the waist, hiked the bosoms and lifted the bottom.
Teamed with a flattering square neckline, you ended up with the most seductive, womanly shape you could hope to achieve.
As the suave French-born Mouret, who made London his base, has said: ‘When I design a dress for a woman, I also think of the man who is going to take it off her.’
But while fashionable women from all over the world were obsessed with him — and his magical creation — a bitter row bubbled behind the scenes.
For the past ten years he has shunned London Fashion Week in favour of Paris, following a falling out with his British financial backers months after the Galaxy launched. He took a two-year break from designing and lost the right to use his name, having to show under the label ‘RM’.
In 2010 he managed to buy back his name, and since then famous women have been returning to the fold. This year, to celebrate his 20th anniversary as a designer, Mouret returned to London Fashion Week. You can doubtless imagine the hushed anticipation among the 100 or so private clients - including countless celebrities who gathered to see his revamped show.
But from the moment the first model appeared, disappointment set in. For a designer once known as the King Of Curves, this time they were few and far between.
For it appears even Mouret has succumbed to the Cult of Thinness. He has said he wants to design clothes that are ‘accessible to every woman — not just clothes for skinny women’. Yet from this catwalk show it appeared he’d done exactly the opposite.
The bitter irony was that the women in Mouret’s front row should have been striding down the catwalk. Former supermodel Yasmin Le Bon, 51 and a healthy size 12, and lusciously curvaceous Daisy Lowe, 28, would have looked sensational zipped into a velvet corset dress. Instead they were watching passively as waif-like models filed past them.
You can see why Mouret might have chosen this path. In the decade since he launched the Galaxy, it’s been copied a thousand times — slipping down the fashion food chain to the flimsy €14.99 dresses seen outside nightclubs.
In a bid to distance himself from that, Mouret is in danger of forgetting just why his designs were such a success in the first place — because they were created for real women with bona fide curves.