The Brooklyn Museum exhibit Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams features more than 200 of Dior’s haute couture garments.
This exhibit at Brooklyn Museum opens with a timeline of Dior’s legacy, beginning with his early life and later walking through the different designers to take the helm of Dior in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Different collections, from the post-World War II era “New Look” to all-black cosmopolitan wear, are highlighted alongside historic texts and images of Christian Dior and his work between both France and New York. Other highlights later in the exhibit include some of Dior’s most elegant ball gowns and evening wear, an all-white display of the studio’s many toiles, or working garments, and a final atrium of floral and nature-inspired designs reminiscent of the elegance of the outdoors.
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams runs at Brooklyn Museum through February 20, 2022. brooklynmuseum.org
“Dior by Roger Vivier” by Elizabeth Semmelhack, Rizzoli, New York 2018.
DIOR BY ROGER VIVIERby shoe historian Elizabeth Semmelhack, is a stunningly crafted volume that details the seminal relationship between French footwear designer Roger Vivier and the House of Dior—and the unforgettable shoes born from the decade-long collaboration.
The designers’ paths began on their creative collision course when Christian Dior launched his first collection a mere two years after WWII ended and immediately caused a sensation. His designs completely eschewed the forced wartime thriftiness that characterized the fashion of the time. Dior came out blazing with billowing skirts featuring liberal amounts of fabric and emphasized waists—inadvertently causing a triumphant return to the expression and acknowledgement of the beauty of the female silhouette. When the editor of Harper’s Bazaar saw the collection, she promptly referred to it as the “New Look,” which took, and subsequently spawned generations of women clamoring for fashion’s return to glamour.
Evening Pumps in Satin; New Style heel, 1962.
To complement his new collection, Dior introduced an equally chic new line of high-heeled shoes that were designed to augment the lines of his clothes and highlight femininity. Dior’s insistence in creating entire outfits, from head to foot, had him relying on various shoemakers to design his footwear collections. While these designers included idols such as David Evins and André Perugia, he needed a cutting-edge designer who could dedicate himself to Dior. As serendipity had it, just a few years later a famous French fashion illustrator and Dior’s design studio director, Raymonde Zehnacker, arranged a meeting between Christian Dior and Roger Vivier. The rest, as they say, is design history! You can purchase the book at Rizzoli to learn the full story and peruse a fantastic photographic record featuring over 300 of Vivier’s dazzlingly beautiful shoes.
The annual Primetime Emmy Awards rounded up some of the best of the best celebrities this past Sunday night, and they brought their A game. The red carpet was full of elegant, unique looks creating a night full of fabulous fashion.
Stephen Colbert hosted the 69th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, CA and honored the best primetime television of the year — and the attendees and nominees showed up looking flawless as ever. The world of fashion filled social media with one dazzling look after another.
This year, the red carpet captivated the glamour associated with Hollywood, keeping us entertained and in awe not only with the talent being recognized, but also the fashion being worn. Stars showed up looking lively, sophisticated, and everything in between.
The best way to describe the fashion of the 2017 Emmy Awards: Fashionably chic. Los Angeles was full of alluring look, astounding reactions, and a positive buzz surrounding the fashion industry.
Downtown Magazine put together a list of our top favorite looks from the 69th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards last night — and we can’t get enough of these gowns. Here are our favorites.
As learned about in Luxury Daily, French fashion house Christian Dior is continuing to be an industry leader with its new campaign. Last week, Dior released a trailer for its latest campaign, as featuring a dramatic dance performance. This creative direction puts emphasis on Dior as a provider of both art and entertainment with its promotion, rather than traditional advertising.
Said Michael Becker, managing partner at mCordis, to Luxury Daily: “Advertising can be an effective tool for building brand awareness, triggering an initial engagement or if timed right it can generate transactions, but advertising is not necessarily the best medium for telling the brands story…A brand is built first and foremost by what it does, how it delivers its value.”
Becker continued: “A brand can amplify its efforts through effective storytelling, but creating content and sharing its domain expertise with the market, as well as with intimate conversation with individuals at scale through emerging platforms like Facebook messenger and chatbot.”
The Poison Club video from Dior mirrors a major motion picture, and was initially teased with a short trailer to get fans excited. The video stars model/actress Camille Rowe.
David Cotteblanche is not only the owner of Red Market Salon, but also a top New York City hairstylist. His work has been featured in the fashion shows of top designers like Yohji Yamamoto, Christian Dior, Diane Von Furstenberg, Ralph Lauren and Nicole Miller. He has styled photo shoots for styled photo shoots for Elle, Town & Country, Gotham Magazine and Playboy. Beyond traditional high-end fashion, he has also helped style plenty of well-known musicians, including Duran Duran and Hot Chip.
Following David’s styling of Jessica Minh Anh for a recent New York fashion show, David caught up with Downtown for some Q&A. More info on David and Red Market can be found online at www.redmarketnyc.com.
How did you hear about Jessica and her fashion show coming to New York City? Did you know her prior to her coming to the New York area?
David Cotteblanche: I heard about Jessica from my friend Mikael Vojinovic. He is a top photographer in France. I started to work with him doing photoshoot in New York City 20 years ago. He connected me with Jessica when he was shooting her in Venice. I never worked with her before. Mikael advised me to go with her project.
What was the focus on the hair/fashion for this particular show? And was this decided prior to the show and were you included on the creative process?
DC: My only focus was Jessica. She is very talented, but also very egocentric. She creates a concept fashion show around the world based on promoting haute couture designers and she is the queen of the show. Jessica always wants a big headpiece. I decided to create one for her marketing photoshoot…The second one for the fashion show was the three different bridges in New York: Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and the Williamsburg Bridge. My friend Sascha Kovabysascha helped me to create the headpiece. The rest of the models I created a low bun, with a dimension of two knots.
When you create hair styles for a particular fashion show does it have anything to do with the actual clothing themselves or more of the fashion designer vision?
DC: When I create a hairstyle for a particular fashion show, it’s decided prior with the designer, who explains the vision of the show to me. Then we decide together.
Where do you get your inspiration from, for the many hairstyles?
DC: My inspiration comes from many hairstyles is movies, architecture, New York City, music, painting, my surroundings…
Do you enjoy working behind the scenes in fashion shows?
DC: I love to work behind the scenes in fashion. I brought in a team of professional and talented stylists, which happen to include great friends of mine. The team consists of Jerome Lordet, Xavier Grange, Crystal Tushinsky, Nathaniel Torres, Karina Herrera, Nicole Eventoff, and Tina Martinez.
What trends do you see coming for the winter 2016 and spring 2017 seasons?
DC: Shorter bob, long HAIR with long bangs and long layers. For the color, blonde ashy, not too much contrast. Ombré is over. Brunette, chocolate with soft chestnut highlights in at the end.
The life of Yves Saint Laurent was forever changed in January of 1958, when the then 21-year-old was asked to oversee the established fashion house of the legendary Christian Dior. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for the young designer—but also a major responsibility that came with very big shoes to fill. Saint Laurent more than surpassed expectations and, in the process, became a legend in his own right.
This year, a film detailing the designer’s rise to success premiered at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. The film, directed by Jalil Lespert and bearing the name of the designer, gives fans an inside look into the personal life of the fashion mogul—specifically highlighting Laurent’s relationship with his partner, Pierre Bergé, with whom he founded the Yves Saint Laurent Company. Lespert expertly captures the spirit of the Saint Laurent brand, documenting the designer’s ascent to an iconic fashion symbol, all while emphasizing the importance of Bergé’s influence on the brand and Laurent himself. The film’s US release date is set for June 25th.
