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In 1966 Andy Warhol exhibited his Silver Flotations – floating silver helium balloons – at the Leo Castelli Gallery. Filling the show space with giant silver flotations of his own, today Raf Simons exhibited his second ready-to-wear collection for the house of Dior, and it was really an exhibition, in the traditional artistic sense. Echoing Warhol’s fascination with screens, and the way everything watches everything, we too watched our reflections in the balloons at Dior as we waited in our seats, and the reflections of the editors sat four along and two back and so forth. Before anything happened, the set had made a statement, not just about Pop Art, but what Warhol was doing in general: forcing his world to look at themselves. The fact that the show started a good while after everyone was seated implied Raf was doing something similar. It was possible too, to watch the models not just on the catwalk, but in mirror image in the balloons. “For me Warhol made so much sense”, Raf said, “I was interested in the delicacy and sensitivity in the early work he did, I was drawn to that graphic style naturally in this collection.” The show notes informed us that Christian Dior too was an art man, starting his career as a gallerist representing Dali and Giacometti. And so the clothes appeared, in their curated space, starting with Warhol’s sketches ‘Female Head 1958′, and ‘High Heel 1956′ printed onto first a white then a black bustier dress. After paying his respects in four Warholian homage dresses with statement bags, Simons went off and away with variations on the Dior ‘Bar’ jacket in shades of grey until a red, red coat jumped off the catwalk, the way, cinematically, the girl in the red coat jumps out of the screen in Schindler’s List. What followed were a series of, actually very sexy bustier dresses in black silk, black leather and black wool. Then came a line of graphic black and white printed dresses in thick knitted wool that really were modern works of art. Panels of pretty pink and a string of bustiers in houndstooth check provided focal points in the painting and semi-circle plunge necklines in pink silk with black bodies worn underneath cut delighting, surprising graphic shapes. It’s easy to forget that this is only Raf’s second season at Dior, he already seems so at home. This collection was art, artful, artisan. It was beautiful, of course it was.
Text: Sarah Raphael
Photography: Mitchell Sams
