HOW THIS COLLECTION CHANGES COUTURE
More importantly is what this show actually does for couture. I remember when Yves Saint Laurent closed his couture operations with a final show at the Pompidou a little more than a decade ago in January 2002. Even though YSL’s partner Pierre Bergé declared then that couture was on the verge of death, somehow, miraculously, and by the sheer will of the financial backing of major corporations behind the few brands still devoted to couture (and the recent emergence of new markets) haute couture survived. In spite of the worst recession of modern times and in spite of dismissals of its irrelevance in the age of fast fashion, couture is back and bigger than ever.

Mr. Simons didn’t just put Dior in a new era by wiping clean any vestiges of the past two decades. He is charting a new course for couture.

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Photos: Imaxtree