Dior Haute Couture Retrospective Pt.1 - Autumn Collections

Good Day to the Human Race! Back to school and I am sitting at a table and attempting to find the words to present today's post, because it's sort of a long-ish post idea, which I have not communicated in my relatively simple Title.

So, here goes:

A Retrospective of the last Seven Years and Fourteen Haute Couture collections of Dior... today I am starting with all the Autumn collections since 2005, and in a future post, I shall do all the Spring Collections since 2006. Why? Well, I know these are all relatively recent and it's not as if I am pulling you back to the sixties, but I was looking through Dior 2005 and wishing I had posted some of it - just because it's not the latest season does not mean I would not blog about it.

Anyway, here is my 'Dior Haute Couture Retrospective', looking back at Dior's very recent Haute Couture History.

Autumn 2005

What distinguishes this collection? It stands out from other collections due to its ressemblance to a Drama or a Story. First a carriage pulls off onto a darkly lit stage, mist everywhere, and a little boy in a sailor suit jumps out followed by a woman in an exquisite gown (top left) and it's a small length of time before the it seems like catwalk starting rather than the start to some fantastic new stage production.

That practically sold it to me as my favourite show because, for people who can't even dream of owning or wearing or buying one of these works of art, it's all about the entertainment factor. The worst thing is to get bored of an Haute Couture Collection.

So yes, top prize for best set. Oh, and the little boy in the sailor suit at the beginning (I know I have already mentioned this) is so adorable! I watched that with the knowledge that I may accidentally torture my own children by stuffing them into sailor suits until they reach the age of seven... and I managed to scare a few younger members of my family by asking their Mother if she would willingly lend them to me to take photos.

I adored the fairylike elements too... as well as the slightly steampunk feel (Yes, I know I am going to severely anger some steampunk classicists, because I would not call this steampunk. Too many things are simply neo-victorian but, while watching, steampunk was a word that popped into my head numerous times. I shall, therefore, mention it. Na!)

(The whole runway video is available on Youtube, among other places. You would not regret taking a look because it's pure spectacle. In fact, all of the videos for these collections are somewhere on Youtube)

Autumn 2006

 

 

I was not sure about this collection. I know a lot of people saw the safest pieces as the dark, brooding fur with the grungy, decadent feeling - but too much brown, too mauch fur and I honestly did not like it, especially with the tight black leggings worn underneath (You'll notice it is not included in the above.)

The rest of the collection, I sort of loved. I did not mind the walking lettuces or cabbages, bref the topiary. There was something delightfully medieval about these few 'topiary' outfits. It almost feels like the women wearing them were going to skip off to a joust any moment, standing at the side with their bright colours (as decoration of course, not as spectators) Yes, it is a little 'Kitsch' but I feel like it's light relief that the collection needed. After all, the vampiric red coat with black belts and black writing (as much as I loved the innovation and the coat was wearable in small measures) was positively frightening. You would not want to meet that in a dark alleyway.

Continuing on the slightly medieval or renaissance feel, though moving in a different form, is the use of the women as half knights... then the gloriously ostentatious finale gowns and helmets in the style of Ancient Greek phalanxes (for those who don't know, the helmets worn ressemble them - but not this one ;) and, as shown above, the more modern military one in brown or gold - with feathers. I chose the red and gold piece because I am adore the amazing way the large trench suit is cut and how it fans out from the waist down. The silhouette is imposing with the large collar and sleeves and the very rich decorations around the edges. In fact, I love them all for their slightly imperial nature!

Autumn 2007

1947 - 2007 sixtieth of Dior and this collection truly seemed to resurrect the style of the 1940s and 1950s, showcasing some beautifully luxurious outfits finished off with delicious opera gloves, using generations of models at Versailles. Glorious moments with the New Look style wasp-waisted and full-skirt silhouette mixed with Hollywood glamour. This, of course, was all the greater for its inspiration drawns from photographer, painters and illustrators. Colour moving in more and more gradually, from the monotone at the beginning to extravagant, vividly coloured gowns at the end.

I adored the theatricality and the glamorous details - it would have felt unfinished without the dazzling jewels, the afore-mentioned gloves, fur trims and beautifully retro curls. I especially loved some of the headgear; the paint palette hat was to die for, in its beautiful simplicity, especially with the dress.

Autumn 2008

This was another hark back to the 40s and 50s with wasp waists, in some ways as an homage to the first great supermodel, Lisa Fonssagrives. Only here the ultrashapely New Look essential was characteristically twisted, turned and toughened up, with such things as studwork and lots of black leather, each look built on a lovely corseted foundation to create the bodies of the dresses and the figures and shapes needed.

The palette was also a great combination with monochromed black and white, then soft pastels as the chief colours. The mixture of semi-pencil skirt shapes and full-skirted created the elegant and sophisticated element that was so charming, giving more feminine effects. The tiered silks and tulles were, again, highlighting the vintage Dior element, with crinolines even being used in places.

However, although it is certainly beautiful and lavish, there was a more sedated air to this Haute Couture collection in comparison to previous collections. Especially in comparison to the Madame Butterfly of the previous Spring. There is maybe a sense of counterpoint to that, a sense of more practicality and a grown up feel.

Autumn 2009

 Out of all the collections I have presented for the Autumn, I would say that this just takes the edge and is the best in terms of wearability. Why? Well, first off, I adored the colour palette and the vibrant air, especially when paired with the undressed feeling. The use of hip-emphasizing basques, girdles, lace-edged slips, and petticoats were morphed into variations on the classic wasp-waisted silhouette of Dior's New Look. Secondly, with maybe a skirt added, it would actually be possible to wear these.

It was not exactly new and innovative, but it was presented elegantly with high-quality appeal - the outfits do not look less classy for the lack of clothing but more as if the women wearing them simply did not have the time to put all their clothes on (I know that this is not the case, but I am trying to conjur an image more than anything else)

Bref, I liked this collection and I cannot pick a favourite piece.

Autumn 2010

 

The Autumn 2010 collection was nothing short of a floral treat. The show had beautifyl clarity that still shines through now, not only in the palette but in the delicate techniques. The shaping of flowers was mimicked in the fronding, the feathering, the beautiful ruching and the intricate ruffling. Delicate they may be in nature, but bold is in the veins of this collection with a coat like a huge inverted daffodil and a dress in black taffeta - hand-painted with pansies. I could not imagine anyone not being seduced by  the jacket and skirt combinations like the jade mohair with portrait neckline over a petaled bubble of black organza or the white felt over lilac organza. Beautiful!
The headgear was fantastic too, created to look like a florist's wrap and adding further floral, and exotic, dimensions to the collection.

In an Edenic beautiful fashion world (bref, the sort of world I deserve to live in) this would be the daywear that would fully complement evening dresses of an extraordinary dimension—gigantic domes of tulle overlaid with gloriously coloured swags of organza (I LOVE ORGANZA - sorry, just thought I might say that)

Anyway, gorgeous collection and worth looking back at.


Autumn 2011 

The 2011 Haute Couture Collection, presented by Bill Gaytten, and his first collection with a great team behind him (made up of Stephen Jones making the headpieces, Jeremy Healy on beats, Michael Howells with his set design, Pat McGrath on makeup and Orlando Pita on hair) was, in many ways, true to the Dior aesthetic. It was architectural too, with elements seeming drawn from the Memphis movement of the 1980s, presenting a sort of post-modern madness.

I did like it, and here are my chosen pieces. I liked the lunar and cosmic aspects, including the last piece in the collection which, I have just realised, I did not choose to post (Ah, well. You can find it online) Other pieces in the collection also came across as semi-disco mixed or with lightly tribal elements.





























Anyway, thanks for reading! Do tell me if anything I have said does not make sense or if a sentence is only half-finished. I am incredibly scatterbrained and tired today and, to be honest, cannot be asked to read this through again. So... yes...

Please comment and Do Follow! I shall be back ASAP with my reviews of a whole load of Spring Dior Collections over the last few years.

Richard Avedon

Buongiorno to all! I am not going to excuse myself for not posting recently and can only assure you that I was not just sitting around twiddling my thumbs - there were genuine reasons why I lacked the time to post.

So... I am happy to say I have reached the hundred follower mark. Whoopee! Yes, that may not seem like a lot but it means a lot to me so thank you and keep following. I promise I will keep posting and this length of absence should not happen again.

I am currently on Holiday, in France, visiting my Grandmother and yesterday I had a marvellous time galloping around 'La Foret de Fontainebleau' with my cousins. Tomorrow, Paris!

Today, I am posting about Richard Avedon, a photographer who, and I really cannot say it better than this quote:

"His fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."

Richard Avedon

Born: May 15th 1923, New York
Died: October 1st 2004, Texas

• Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian family.
• After briefly attending Columbia University, he started as a photographer for the Merchant Marines in 1942, taking identification pictures of the crewmen with his Rolleiflex camera given to him by his father as a going-away present.
• In 1944, he began working as an advertising photographer for a department store, but was quickly discovered by Alexey Brodovitch, the art director for the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar. Lillian Bassman also promoted Avedon's career at Harper's.
• In 1946, Avedon had set up his own studio and began providing images for magazines including Vogue and Life. He soon became the chief photographer for Harper's Bazaar.
• Avedon did not conform to the standard technique of taking fashion photographs, where models stood emotionless and seemingly indifferent to the camera. Instead, Avedon showed models full of emotion, smiling, laughing, and, many times, in action.
• In 1966, Avedon left Harper's Bazaar to work as a photographer for Vogue magazine. He proceeded to become the lead photographer of Vogue and photographed most of the covers from 1973 until Anna Wintour became editor in chief in late 1988.
• Notable among his fashion advertisement photograph series are the recurring assignments for Gianni Versace, starting from the spring/summer campaign 1980. He also photographed the Calvin Klein Jeans campaign featuring a fifteen year old Brooke Shields, as well as directing her in the television commercials. 

"When Dick walks into the room, a lot of people are intimidated. But when he works, he's so acutely creative, so sensitive. And he doesn't like it if anyone else is around or speaking. There is a mutual vulnerability, and a moment of fusion when he clicks the shutter. You either get it or you don't". Brooke Shields

• In addition to his continuing fashion work, Avedon began to branch out and photographed patients of mental hospitals, the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, protesters of the Vietnam War, and later the fall of the Berlin Wall.
• During this period, Avedon also created two famous sets of portraits of The Beatles. The first, taken in mid to late 1967, became one of the first major rock poster series, and consisted of five striking psychedelic portraits of the group — four heavily solarized individual color portraits and a black-and-white group portrait taken with a Rolleiflex camera. The next year he photographed the much more restrained portraits.
• Avedon was always interested in how portraiture captures the personality and soul of its subject. As his reputation as a photographer became widely known, he brought in many famous faces to his studio and photographed them with a large-format 8x10 view camera. His portraits are easily distinguished by their minimalist style, where the person is looking squarely in the camera, posed in front of a sheer white background. Avedon would at times evoke reactions from his portrait subjects by guiding them into uncomfortable areas of discussion or asking them psychologically probing questions. Through these means he would produce images revealing aspects of his subject's character and personality that were not typically captured by others.
• He is also distinguished by his large prints, sometimes measuring over three feet in height. His large-format portrait work of drifters, miners, cowboys and others from the western United States became a best-selling book and traveling exhibit entitled In the American West, and is regarded as an important hallmark in 20th century portrait photography, and by some as Avedon's magnum opus.
• When first published and exhibited, In the American West was criticized for showing what some considered to be a disparaging view of America. Avedon was also lauded for treating his subjects with the attention and dignity usually reserved for the politically powerful and celebrities.
• Avedon became the first staff photographer for The New Yorker in 1992. He has won many awards for his photography, including the International Center of Photography Master of Photography Award in 1993, the Prix Nadar in 1994 for his photobook Evidence, and the Royal Photographic Society 150th Anniversary Medal in 2003. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001.
• Avedon had numerous museum exhibitions around the world, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Richard & Audrey

Hollywood presented a fictional account of his early career in the 1957 musical Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire as the fashion photographer "Dick Avery." Avedon supplied some of the still photographs used in the production, including its most famous single image: an intentionally overexposed close-up of Audrey Hepburn's face in which only her famous features - her eyes, her eyebrows, and her mouth - are visible.

Hepburn was Avedon's muse in the 1950s and 1960s, and he went so far as to say "I am, and forever will be, devastated by the gift of Audrey Hepburn before my camera. I cannot lift her to greater heights. She is already there. I can only record. I cannot interpret her. There is no going further than who she is. She has achieved in herself her ultimate portrait."

^{Dovima with Elephants}

In August 1955, Richard Avedon held an ambitious fashion shoot that was to showcase French fashion designer Christian Dior.

Although most conventional fashion images after the Second World War were shot in the studio, Avedon often created his images outside, posing his models in streets, cafés and casinos.... and the location for this shoot was inside the famous Cirque d'hiver in Paris.

The model in the Cirque d'hiver shoot was Dovima. Her real name was Dorothy Virginia Margaret Juba.

Tall and slender, Dovima epitomised 1950s style and was said to be one of the highest-paid models of the period. 

The shoot took place on a hot summer's day. Avedon later recalled that when he entered the area where the elephants were kept, he saw that the animals were beautifully lit by natural light. 'I saw the elephants under an enormous skylight and in a second I knew… there was the potential here for a kind of dream image.'

In the most famous image from the shoot, Dovima is shown in an ankle-length black evening gown with a white sash. It was the first dress designed for Dior by Yves Saint-Laurent. Although the elephants each had one foot chained to the floor, they were still potentially dangerous and Dovima had to hold her nerve as they moved restlessly behind her. She is shown striking a graceful, narcissistic pose, her eyes almost closed, with one hand resting on an elephant's trunk. In the second picture, she was in a white dress with long black gloves.

The picture has become iconic for a number of reasons. First, its almost surreal juxtaposition of the model and elephants is visually arresting and unexpected, combining fantasy and reality. Second, it is beautifully lit and elegantly posed. Finally, the picture represents a contrast of opposites: youth and age, strength and frailty, grace and awkwardness, freedom and captivity. The picture's rich combination of qualities elevates it beyond the standard fashion image and into the realm of high art.

'Dovima with Elephants' is widely regarded as one of the most iconic fashion photograph of the 20th century. Avedon recognised its importance and displayed a large print of the image in the entrance to his studio for more than 20 years. He nevertheless remained unsatisfied with it. 'I look at that picture to this day and I don't know why I didn't have the sash blowing out to the left, to complete the line of the picture,' he said late in life. 'The picture will always be a failure to me because that sash isn't out there.'

 

Thank you for reading! Please follow and DO comment! Seriously, I don't bite... well, not all the time. 

Pulchritudinous

Greetings Folks! Sorry for another temporary absence, but I have been very busy and very tired and very everything else which might cause a temporary absence from blogging. Oh, and I have found a new *pretty* word: Pulchritudinous! It means beautiful and my guess would be that it derives from the Latin word, Pulchra, meaning beautiful (See, three years of Latin were not completely wasted on me)

Anyway, having spent an evening watching terribly addictive bad TV and eating chocolate muffins made by my sister, I have decided to do something productive. Since I have no terribly urgent homework assignments, I have decided to post a few photos I took last Sunday.

I had spent all morning rehearsing for two plays I am doing in my youth drama group 'Daisy Pulls it off' and 'The History Boys' before driving straight to my friend - Aggi's house to let her forcibly make me remove all my make-up and assault my face (Well re-do my make-up in a more technically demanding way, one I could never do myself) She did it twice after crimping my hair, the results of which you can also see here. The first time she made it with huge streaks of teal on my eyelids and, although I liked it and it took her at least an hour to do, she removed it all to do this. I also ended up looking slightly paler than usual by the end of it, though I can not say that I was not warned. Aggi did point out that she was going for an 'alien' look and started off the session by commenting that I was starting to look like a corpse. By the end, however, I think it did look really good and I liked how she used practically white foundation on my cheekbones and nose to 'illuminate' them.

I will also include in this post a few random 'tid-bits' of quotes because I really can not be asked to write a proper post. I am too exhausted and I need to finish this within twenty minutes... or else.

"We play at being Nomads

At the strings of a lute and hands of a clock

Turning them backwards with dirty-nailed fingers

We play at picking locks."

- Z.Barnes

This look was really put together to wear on Sunday because I had a rehearsal, but I do like it. I like the vibrant green scarf against the black jazz shoes, simple black long-sleeved top and black trousers. I also think that this hair works really well with it. I did not think I would like it (and I know my Mother did not) but I love my hair crimped like this. I really want to buy some of those crimping tong things. Yes, I know that it damages the hair and all that, but this is a level of volume I am not accustomed to... I would not use them all the time, indeed I wouldn't have the time, but hair grows back and once in every two weeks wouldn't hurt.

I have also been thinking over the last few days about the term 'Opheliac' - the only example of this is that it is the title of an album by one of my friend's favourite singers... but it started me thinking on this track. What exactly is an Opheliac?
I am also exploring a new theory of mine in conjunction with my latest planned play named 'The Helen of Troy Syndrome', which is not-so-coincidentally the same name as the one given to a group of my better clothing designs - more to come soon on this subject.

"I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not." - Lucille Ball

"Nothing is ever as good as the fantasy of it."

- Z.Barnes (though, for all I know, this is already somebody else's quote)

I love clothes - I always have, but because my circle of friends is generally built on intellectual similarity rather than a shared love of style, some of them have questioned it. Recently, when asked over a Facebook message 'Why? Clothes are to keep warm and so you do not get arrested' I started off with this:

"I just like clothes."

Then, when prompted further:

"Why? Well, I suppose because I consider myself an Aesthete and, to me, clothing should be a form of expression, of Art. After all, Oscar Wilde said 'One should either be a work of Art or wear a work of Art' and I am sticking by that. Clothing should be like Paintings, Music, Architecture and Theatre... a way of proving that humanity is so much more than just apes on their hind legs with sharper brains and more technological advancements. "

Before finishing on this note.

"Anyway, it's nice to put an effort into things. It may not be right, but you are judged by the way you look... and I want to be judged in a certain way."

I rest my case.

 

 

 Thank you for reading! Do Comment and Please Follow. It means a lot to me.

I should be back soon with a much more fashion-related post. I am determined to do at least another three

posts before the end of march.  

PS: What do you all think of my hair like this? Like or not? Please comment! I will not be offended if you tell me that this hairstyle is one which I should never have even considered.