Twenty-eight-year-old French couturier Maxime Simoens will debut his first ever ready-to-wear collection in Paris on March 3, thanks to a little financial boost from mega luxury conglomerate LVMH, who yesterday confirmed its investment in Simoens’s young label.
Raf Simons’ first show for Dior was over a week ago–a veritable eternity in internet time–but that doesn’t mean we’re tired of hearing about it. Alina Cho, CNN’s style reporter, was at the show and got some primo interviews with Raf himself, Marc Jacobs, Sidney Toledano, and Anna Wintour. We tuned into CNN International this morning to catch the spot and learned some new things like exactly how many flowers adorned the walls of the salons at the show (spoiler: one million!), what Anna thought of the collection, and why the heck Sidney Toledano et al took so long to choose a successor to Galliano. Read on for all the nuggets:
Fashion houses have been struggling lately with the notion of whether or not a label needs a marquee designer to be the face/DNA/personality of a brand. (See: The Simon Spurr fiasco). When Galliano was fired from Dior for his now-notorious anti-Semitic rant, many wondered what would become of the house in the wake of the loss of its charismatic artistic director.
What happened is that Dior’s sales increased. With Galliano’s right-hand man Bill Gaytten standing in until a successor was named, Dior’s revenues hit $1 billion in 2011 for the first time ever, according to the Financial Times. Sidney Toledano, the president and chief executive of Christian Dior was surprised.
Those hoping for a Dior announcement this week may not want to hold their breath. In a blog post based purely on rumor and speculation (sorry, Suzy), Hint Mag claims that Dior CEO Sidney Toledano has just signed on Bill Gaytten, who most assumed would only be a temporary replacement, for six more seasons as creative director.
Hint’s source claims that Raf Simons, a frontrunner who we assumed would take the reigns after his departure from Jil Sander, was close to an agreement with Dior until he asked for too high a salary. This reportedly “outraged” Toledano, so he halted the company’s search for new talent and instead gave Gaytten the job for three more years.
Marc Jacobs is not going to Dior.
A source close to the situation tells us Jacobs “declined” the job for good sometime in “mid November.” LVMH reportedly approached Jacobs about taking the reigns at Dior in July after Bill Gaytten showed his critically-slammed couture collection for the house. Jacobs seemed a shoe-in for the job. But negotiations between LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, Dior president Sidney Toledano and Jacobs fell apart over money and the reorganization of Jacobs’ team. According to a source, Jacobs wanted to bring his team from Vuitton to Dior and “transfer the aesthetic from one house to another” (which might explain the dramatic shift towards a more girly aesthetic in Jacobs’ spring collection for Vuitton).
“It has been deeply painful to see the Dior name associated with the disgraceful statements attributed to its designer, however brilliant he may be…. So now, more than ever, we must publicly re-commit to the values of the House of Dior.” –An excerpt from Christian Dior CEO Sidney Toledano’s speech at today’s runway show, regarding the house’s dismissal of John Galliano. Via WWD.
