Believe it or not, Jonathan Anderson has finally worn out his Dior debut first. This time he took us to the Tuileries Gardens. The sun was shining suspiciously bright between the Louvre Museum and Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. It turns out that the French climate is also supportive of Anderson’s Dior. For those who actually opened the show invitation, all of this was to be expected, but that little gray box contained a miniature of the Tuileries’ signature green chair, somehow stealing the spotlight from the full-sized chair.
Anderson took flowers seriously, and who doesn’t love flowers? (If you’re a weirdo, zip it up, I’m scared of his reaction.) The Maison’s usual white tent in the Jardin des Tuileries wasn’t an option this season. However, the idea was to build a bridge over a pond full of fake water lilies and then circle around a glass chamber reserved for the audience. Then it became a runway, with Monet’s water lilies at the nearby Musée de l’Orangerie seemingly lifted out of their frames for a Dior cameo.
“I think that’s what’s so interesting about the park somehow. Historically, Dior has always done shows here. I always think of the Pleasure Garden, or even in England, the Promenade, where people dressed to go somewhere,” Anderson told Vera Freud from one of the green chairs a few minutes before the show. And what do you wear when you go to the park? First of all, a Dior bar jacket. Reinterpreted as a little gray cardigan with peplum flares, it was paired with a white tutu that seemed to borrow layers from a wedding cake, somehow resembling a skirt and a cloud, complete with a train waving in the wind. Imagine the looks of three people who may be distant relatives.
Poiret-inspired balloon pants and shirred-lined frock coats followed. Together, the details of Mnsr.Dior’s 1949 “Junon” gown, embellished jeans, asymmetrical skirts, scarfed shirts, dots, tulle, feathers, furry hems, lilies on pumps, and lots of head-turning light drapes and fluffy volumes. And somewhere between the atelier and the pond I remembered why we look these programsabout the clothes, yes, but mostly about the existential questions they sneak into. Are we wearing our bodies or are we wearing our ideas? Are we really living in that space, or is it the garden? And now I’m wondering if I need a tutu for my next walk.
Source: Our Culture – ourculturemag.com
