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John Galliano for Dior

By Ruth Doherty on Tuesday 22 January 2008

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Dior Couture S/S 2008

High-glam, bold and ground-breaking - yep, it's John Galliano for Dior.

If Anne Valerie Hash left audiences gagging for the usual pomp and circumstance you would expect from the opening of Paris Couture Week, they surely can't have been disappointed with the theatrical-packed performance from the models at John Galliano for Dior.

Inspired by John Singer Sargent's scandalous-for-the-time Madame X portrait of Virginie Améle Gautreau, the show was a wilfully decadent mix of extravagantly bunched silks, satins and taffetas on striking electric colours (burnt orange, mint, azure blue, canary yellow), finished with exquisitely decorative embroidery and hand-paintings.

Voluminous was the buzz word: whether on strapless knee-length pieces or full-length tiered hemlines, nipped-in waists were contrasted with whipped-up power-puffball hems, where swathes of fabric created cloud-soft shapes that left a hard-hitting impression. Corsets, bustles and clever constructions dominated the runway with intricate peplums and terse trapezes, mixed with Fifties and Sixties-style prints and nest-like hairdos.

If slinky sexiness was lacking, it was made up for with theatrical feminism and a double helping of romanticism: the rose played a star turn, often magnified to sizes that would make Carrie Bradshaw's eyes water; a super-sized corsage was the main feature on a full-bodied brown swing coat with pink floral embroidery, while a group of giant roses finished the hem of a larger-than-life purple smock dress.

And the accessories? Far from making up the 'wearable' contingent, the models feet were clad in dangerously high, cut-out wedges that, in line with the rest of the collection, were more an art form than a feasible piece of footwear; it would take someone with the fashion force and gravitas of Chloë Sevigny to pull off such cavernous creations.

Just like Sargent's 1884 painting, Galliano's garments fizzed with controversy, daring and a no-holds-barred sensuality that was the perfect fit for Paris.

High drama? Absolument.

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