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Who adores Dior?
To-die-for couture at the shows; flashy logo-ed jeans and plastic p*rno mules in the shops. So who is the Dior woman? Kate Spicer tries to find out
NI_MPU('middle');It makes me think of Jordan or Pamela Anderson,” says Danielle Eagles, a Liverpool-based lifestyle adviser to footballers and their wives in the northwest. Eagles makes sure that mid-league footballing couples know which clubs to go to in London, where their next holiday should be and what clothes to wear. I am accompanying her and her friend on a look round the Manchester branch of Selfridges, and we have just stopped at the Dior concession. “That pink-and-white logo, the white stiletto heel — it’s dolly-bird Essex.”
“The girls from Liverpool and the Indian girls go for them,” says the Dior assistant.
“Well, I’m from Liverpool, and I think it’s like a Barbie shoe,” says Eagles’s mate. “I’ve never seen a girl in Liverpool wearing a pair of those. I could really see Jodie Marsh in that — at Stringfellows.”
Eagles looks over the selection in the concession, which is largely bags, shoes and entry-level clothing — scarves, tops and those J’adore Dior T-shirts. “They remind me of ‘I love Benidorm’. I really do not know who buys them,” she says, fingering a £255 sequined one. “Some of it’s young, fun and bold, like disposable high fashion at top prices. But even if the prices were high-street, I still wouldn’t buy it. I suppose it’s a real emblem of how much disposable cash is around.”
Her mate says: “It makes me think of that Shania Twain line, ‘All we ever want is more/A lot more than we had before’.”
Justine Mills, the owner and buyer of Cricket, Liverpool’s fashion HQ for footballers’ wives, explains why, in a city of peacocks who love nothing more than dressing very up, and will spend their last pennies doing so, you can’t find Dior. “We have Roland Mouret, Balenciaga, Stella, Chloé, Missoni, Matthew Williamson and Temperley. But we don’t stock Dior, because, although I think it has a fantastic designer, the best, I imagine the people who buy it are Russian prostitutes.”
The words “Russian prostitute” come up again in the weeks spent trying to figure out who is Dior woman now. The label, once known for its raffiné tailoring, romantic evening dresses and strong sense of colour, is now frequently spoken of in those somewhat racist bywords for a tasteless logo wh*re. Even the two most devoted Dior junkies I unearthed used those cruel words when we went for a good rummage around the Sloane Street shop. Even they found some of the kit revolting.
Fashion takes a hard line on Dior’s designer, John Galliano. He is, officially, a genius, and is always spoken of in reverential terms. If you own a piece of Galliano’s Central St Martins graduation show — famously sold lock, stock to Joan Burstein of Browns as it came off the catwalk — then you own a fashion Picasso. The maverick prince joined the house of Dior in 1997, and has been credited with raising one of Paris’s most distinguished ateliers from the dust. His couture shows are a fashion spectacular, the work of a genius designer at the top of his game, but he also bears responsibility for the entire design empire — the ready-to-wear, accessories, perfume, children’s clothes, watches, jewellery and beauty. From a £30,000 couture dress to a £10 lip gloss, it is all under Galliano’s creative thumb.
He has said that when he designs couture, he has someone real in his head, someone who epitomises modern style — Kate Moss or Gwen Stefani, perhaps. I wonder whom he had in mind when he was designing the plastic high-heeled mules in white and pink? There is a chasm between the glamour, creativity and spectacle of catwalk Dior, and the utter trashiness of much of the Dior that makes it into the shops. The French are whispering about the tarnishing of the once chic brand. Two Parisian stylists told me how they had stood outside the shop on Avenue Montaigne, laughing.
A high-end freelance fashion stylist, who would not be named (insult Dior and you will probably never be allowed access to its clothes again), concurs: “I definitely think that the stuff in the shop is absolute trash. The shows are an amazing spectacle, but bullsh*t compared with what ends up in the shops, where there is pink and chiffon and diamanté all over the place.
“It’s a case of emperor’s new clothes, because nobody in London does that look. I imagine Britain is not a big market for them. Who wears that sh*t?” Another international fashion commentator, who also refused to be named, sees Dior as “that strange mix of high-fashion concept and something trashy and naff. It is for people with flashy money. And for those who can’t afford the suit, there are hair bobbles and handbags. Under Galliano, Dior has become more accessible, but his accessible lines don’t sit comfortably with the prêt-à-porter. It is like he is having a laugh at the customer’s expense”.
Galliano doesn’t see it like that, of course. “The trick, I guess, is to get a happy balance of creativity and originality with commercial appeal,” he says, “to create a mood or personality that everyone can tap into and buy into.” Or, as Sidney Toledano, the president of Dior, puts it: “The creative side defines the concept of the collection — the vision. The business side is responsible for bringing the designer’s vision to life ... with the consumer.”
But what sort of consumer? I am in the store on Sloane Street, the only Dior shop in Britain. Upstairs, the shoes, handbags and sunglasses draw a crowd of bridge-and-tunnel shoppers in crisply ironed peasant wear, straight outta Epsom. The majority of the shoppers are American, wearing hijab or doing the bubble-gum high-fashion thing that the Japanese do so well. Downstairs, where the clothes are, there is just an overweight mother of the bride and her pal. Of course, there is stuff I would grab in a trolley dash — the odd vest, a pair of black silk MC Hammer pants, a petrol-green, classic Galliano bias-cut dress, spoilt only by a blatant logo’ed buckle on its hip. But I am here for the horrors, and my basket overfloweth: fringed suede hot pants, brown jeans in logo-ed fabric, a fuchsia frilly top, appliquéd and sequined denim, even midriff-baring tops (even New Look has dumped the crop top — midriff-baring is desperately fashion old hat). The nipped-in jackets in the palest denim with white lace look great in the ads, but would take some wearing to look anything other than Moscow moneyed in the real world. The pièces de résistance, though, are white-and-pink logoed silk-jersey sports separates. Teamed in a certain way, they look remarkably like shell suits.
It seems as though all these bizarre clothes aren’t meant for the rarefied London fashion market, but for tourists. I tried to track down an indigenous Dior crowd, I really did. I rang round the after-dark divas, the door b*tches, the label whores, the fashion junkies and the women who spend bucketloads on clothes, and I came up with hardly anyone who, in recent years, had bought more than a couple of pairs of sunglasses. Apparently, Dior from the 1950s and 1960s goes well at Bang Bang, the vintage boutique on London’s Goodge Street. But the current collections are a different matter.
A couple of people who have been friends with Galliano since the days when he was regularly seen out with the true hip London mafia said things discreetly through other people, off the record, under pain of death: “She loves Galliano, but she is not a huge fan of mainline Dior”; “She much prefers John’s own stuff”; “She is a very old friend of John’s, and obviously thinks he is a creative genius, but a lot of Dior is not her thing — although she does have some beautiful Dior dresses.”
But the discerning fashion crowd are deserting Dior. Even the baby socialites don’t go for the logo-ed lollipop chic. Isabella Hervey has a baby-pink Dior jumper that bares her midriff, apparently, but those girls are more into Chloé and Matthew Williamson these days.
At the opening of Baby Dior in June, a garden square in Belgravia was transformed into a brat party paradise, with scented Dior candles, white tents, fairies and carousels. The haute couture mamans et bébés were flown over from Paris — models, socialites and actresses — and put up at the Berkeley for free. The British list ranged from the stylist queen bee Katy England to Tamara Mellon, Mrs Roman Abramovich and Elizabeth Hurley. These are the customers Dior wants to think about.
Hurley gave me a quote, which I am under strict instructions to use in full: “I’ve worn countless Dior dresses, and they’ve all been fabulous. I love wearing anything that John designs. More importantly, not only is he brilliantly creative and talented, he’s also an incredibly nice man.”
Hurley has been seen in a lot of Dior. She will do entry-level kit such as the J’adore Dior T-shirt — as seen on every fake-label market stall from Wembley to Istanbul — and she will do couture gowns.
Baby Dior is going to be all about entry-level kit. Not every mummy can afford the main collection’s chiffon minidress, but seeing baby in £50 Dior diamanté bootees or sucking on a plastic bottle with Dior wrapped around it is going to delight a certain type of godmother. Because when it is for kids, the tackiness of blatant Dior branding is bypassed for the pure campness of it all. Baby Dior is for sale in Liverpool.
When I meet Kate and Liz, the girlfriends of wealthy nightclub and property entrepreneurs, Kate, 25, is wearing a pair of those pink-and-white mules, along with high-end jeans and a tight, bright-pink kaftan stretched across her standout, pillowy cleavage. Liz, 33, is wearing exactly the same. “Diamonds and pink are the words that describe me and Kate,” says Liz.
We talk over several vodka tonics. These women don’t work — other than at the gym, where they wear old J’adore Dior T-shirts, even the sequined ones. Their style icons are Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, “Cat Deeley’s got beautiful hair” and Victoria Beckham.
“We’re not into Jordan. I like the way she looks, but she’s too trashy and high-street. Kate Moss? She makes no effort. I can’t pull that grungy look together — there is an art to it,” says Liz. “Some of the looks that Sienna Miller comes out in, they’re just not acceptable,” agrees Kate.
“We feel a bit weird about wearing colours in this country. British fashion icons are grungy, they wear neutrals and are safe — if you wear colours, you’re made to feel different. We go away a lot, to Europe and America, as much to get dressed up and go out with like-minded people as anything else, because nobody gets dressed up here.”
These girls like to shop — a lot. “The first place I go in Selfridges is the Dior concession. I can guarantee I will like the Dior stuff. Bags, shoes, trainers, casual stuff, belts, sunglasses, lip glosses. I love it all.”
As if to illustrate, they both pull out a gooey, glittery pink Dior Addict lip gloss and top up their juicy kissers. Kate and Liz are dripping in ice: a Chopard watch, a Rolex with diamond bezel, earrings, necklaces. Money is no object. Both had £550 hair extensions cut out in a matter of days — “They gave us a headache.”
Is it any surprise that Dior has an advertising hoarding inside the Nikki Beach bar in St Tropez? Monett, a rich German woman who lives in Monte Carlo, loves Dior. “His clothes aren’t serious. They are perfect for a yacht party. It’s not metropolitan. I would never wear Dior in Germany. In Hamburg or London, you can’t run around in crazy yellow trousers, but here you can. Certainly, some of his looks are too Russian, if you know what I mean, and you can’t wear Dior head to toe, like you can with Cavalli.”
Kate and Liz prefer to do their Dior shopping in Marbella and Monaco. “Dior has just opened a shop in Marbella, where the stuff is more extrovert and OTT. I love the shop in Cannes — there is a lovely one on the Croisette. The bags are nicer — proper crackers, like the ones in the Dubai shop. It’s a more expensive range, a better range, because the customers are richer.”
This summer, they will be shaking their long, immaculately straight blonde hair in Ibiza, Miami, Marbella and New York. “I bought these for Ibiza,” she says, turning her heel for a look at her Dior mules. “They’re great, ’cos the heels don’t scuff.” Doesn’t she think they’re a bit ... “What, strippery? Yeah, I do,” she says, laughing.
And there’s the rub. The cheaper entry-level lines, the ones so diffuse from the original couture collection, are for the fashion ingénue. And they will sell — big time. Last year, the Dior Group turned profits of £1.7 billion. But with Galliano putting on £1m couture shows, it needs to. The vulgar-logoed Dior that you find in the shops finances Galliano’s creative pleasures. As one fashion historian said: “If this is the price we pay for him pushing forward the parameters of fashion, then it’s a price worth paying.”
And the price we pay is the pink-and-white plastic p*rno mules, at £200 a pair.
To-die-for couture at the shows; flashy logo-ed jeans and plastic p*rno mules in the shops. So who is the Dior woman? Kate Spicer tries to find out
“The girls from Liverpool and the Indian girls go for them,” says the Dior assistant.
“Well, I’m from Liverpool, and I think it’s like a Barbie shoe,” says Eagles’s mate. “I’ve never seen a girl in Liverpool wearing a pair of those. I could really see Jodie Marsh in that — at Stringfellows.”
Eagles looks over the selection in the concession, which is largely bags, shoes and entry-level clothing — scarves, tops and those J’adore Dior T-shirts. “They remind me of ‘I love Benidorm’. I really do not know who buys them,” she says, fingering a £255 sequined one. “Some of it’s young, fun and bold, like disposable high fashion at top prices. But even if the prices were high-street, I still wouldn’t buy it. I suppose it’s a real emblem of how much disposable cash is around.”
Her mate says: “It makes me think of that Shania Twain line, ‘All we ever want is more/A lot more than we had before’.”
Justine Mills, the owner and buyer of Cricket, Liverpool’s fashion HQ for footballers’ wives, explains why, in a city of peacocks who love nothing more than dressing very up, and will spend their last pennies doing so, you can’t find Dior. “We have Roland Mouret, Balenciaga, Stella, Chloé, Missoni, Matthew Williamson and Temperley. But we don’t stock Dior, because, although I think it has a fantastic designer, the best, I imagine the people who buy it are Russian prostitutes.”
The words “Russian prostitute” come up again in the weeks spent trying to figure out who is Dior woman now. The label, once known for its raffiné tailoring, romantic evening dresses and strong sense of colour, is now frequently spoken of in those somewhat racist bywords for a tasteless logo wh*re. Even the two most devoted Dior junkies I unearthed used those cruel words when we went for a good rummage around the Sloane Street shop. Even they found some of the kit revolting.
Fashion takes a hard line on Dior’s designer, John Galliano. He is, officially, a genius, and is always spoken of in reverential terms. If you own a piece of Galliano’s Central St Martins graduation show — famously sold lock, stock to Joan Burstein of Browns as it came off the catwalk — then you own a fashion Picasso. The maverick prince joined the house of Dior in 1997, and has been credited with raising one of Paris’s most distinguished ateliers from the dust. His couture shows are a fashion spectacular, the work of a genius designer at the top of his game, but he also bears responsibility for the entire design empire — the ready-to-wear, accessories, perfume, children’s clothes, watches, jewellery and beauty. From a £30,000 couture dress to a £10 lip gloss, it is all under Galliano’s creative thumb.
He has said that when he designs couture, he has someone real in his head, someone who epitomises modern style — Kate Moss or Gwen Stefani, perhaps. I wonder whom he had in mind when he was designing the plastic high-heeled mules in white and pink? There is a chasm between the glamour, creativity and spectacle of catwalk Dior, and the utter trashiness of much of the Dior that makes it into the shops. The French are whispering about the tarnishing of the once chic brand. Two Parisian stylists told me how they had stood outside the shop on Avenue Montaigne, laughing.
A high-end freelance fashion stylist, who would not be named (insult Dior and you will probably never be allowed access to its clothes again), concurs: “I definitely think that the stuff in the shop is absolute trash. The shows are an amazing spectacle, but bullsh*t compared with what ends up in the shops, where there is pink and chiffon and diamanté all over the place.
“It’s a case of emperor’s new clothes, because nobody in London does that look. I imagine Britain is not a big market for them. Who wears that sh*t?” Another international fashion commentator, who also refused to be named, sees Dior as “that strange mix of high-fashion concept and something trashy and naff. It is for people with flashy money. And for those who can’t afford the suit, there are hair bobbles and handbags. Under Galliano, Dior has become more accessible, but his accessible lines don’t sit comfortably with the prêt-à-porter. It is like he is having a laugh at the customer’s expense”.
Galliano doesn’t see it like that, of course. “The trick, I guess, is to get a happy balance of creativity and originality with commercial appeal,” he says, “to create a mood or personality that everyone can tap into and buy into.” Or, as Sidney Toledano, the president of Dior, puts it: “The creative side defines the concept of the collection — the vision. The business side is responsible for bringing the designer’s vision to life ... with the consumer.”
But what sort of consumer? I am in the store on Sloane Street, the only Dior shop in Britain. Upstairs, the shoes, handbags and sunglasses draw a crowd of bridge-and-tunnel shoppers in crisply ironed peasant wear, straight outta Epsom. The majority of the shoppers are American, wearing hijab or doing the bubble-gum high-fashion thing that the Japanese do so well. Downstairs, where the clothes are, there is just an overweight mother of the bride and her pal. Of course, there is stuff I would grab in a trolley dash — the odd vest, a pair of black silk MC Hammer pants, a petrol-green, classic Galliano bias-cut dress, spoilt only by a blatant logo’ed buckle on its hip. But I am here for the horrors, and my basket overfloweth: fringed suede hot pants, brown jeans in logo-ed fabric, a fuchsia frilly top, appliquéd and sequined denim, even midriff-baring tops (even New Look has dumped the crop top — midriff-baring is desperately fashion old hat). The nipped-in jackets in the palest denim with white lace look great in the ads, but would take some wearing to look anything other than Moscow moneyed in the real world. The pièces de résistance, though, are white-and-pink logoed silk-jersey sports separates. Teamed in a certain way, they look remarkably like shell suits.
It seems as though all these bizarre clothes aren’t meant for the rarefied London fashion market, but for tourists. I tried to track down an indigenous Dior crowd, I really did. I rang round the after-dark divas, the door b*tches, the label whores, the fashion junkies and the women who spend bucketloads on clothes, and I came up with hardly anyone who, in recent years, had bought more than a couple of pairs of sunglasses. Apparently, Dior from the 1950s and 1960s goes well at Bang Bang, the vintage boutique on London’s Goodge Street. But the current collections are a different matter.
A couple of people who have been friends with Galliano since the days when he was regularly seen out with the true hip London mafia said things discreetly through other people, off the record, under pain of death: “She loves Galliano, but she is not a huge fan of mainline Dior”; “She much prefers John’s own stuff”; “She is a very old friend of John’s, and obviously thinks he is a creative genius, but a lot of Dior is not her thing — although she does have some beautiful Dior dresses.”
But the discerning fashion crowd are deserting Dior. Even the baby socialites don’t go for the logo-ed lollipop chic. Isabella Hervey has a baby-pink Dior jumper that bares her midriff, apparently, but those girls are more into Chloé and Matthew Williamson these days.
At the opening of Baby Dior in June, a garden square in Belgravia was transformed into a brat party paradise, with scented Dior candles, white tents, fairies and carousels. The haute couture mamans et bébés were flown over from Paris — models, socialites and actresses — and put up at the Berkeley for free. The British list ranged from the stylist queen bee Katy England to Tamara Mellon, Mrs Roman Abramovich and Elizabeth Hurley. These are the customers Dior wants to think about.
Hurley gave me a quote, which I am under strict instructions to use in full: “I’ve worn countless Dior dresses, and they’ve all been fabulous. I love wearing anything that John designs. More importantly, not only is he brilliantly creative and talented, he’s also an incredibly nice man.”
Hurley has been seen in a lot of Dior. She will do entry-level kit such as the J’adore Dior T-shirt — as seen on every fake-label market stall from Wembley to Istanbul — and she will do couture gowns.
Baby Dior is going to be all about entry-level kit. Not every mummy can afford the main collection’s chiffon minidress, but seeing baby in £50 Dior diamanté bootees or sucking on a plastic bottle with Dior wrapped around it is going to delight a certain type of godmother. Because when it is for kids, the tackiness of blatant Dior branding is bypassed for the pure campness of it all. Baby Dior is for sale in Liverpool.
When I meet Kate and Liz, the girlfriends of wealthy nightclub and property entrepreneurs, Kate, 25, is wearing a pair of those pink-and-white mules, along with high-end jeans and a tight, bright-pink kaftan stretched across her standout, pillowy cleavage. Liz, 33, is wearing exactly the same. “Diamonds and pink are the words that describe me and Kate,” says Liz.
We talk over several vodka tonics. These women don’t work — other than at the gym, where they wear old J’adore Dior T-shirts, even the sequined ones. Their style icons are Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, “Cat Deeley’s got beautiful hair” and Victoria Beckham.
“We’re not into Jordan. I like the way she looks, but she’s too trashy and high-street. Kate Moss? She makes no effort. I can’t pull that grungy look together — there is an art to it,” says Liz. “Some of the looks that Sienna Miller comes out in, they’re just not acceptable,” agrees Kate.
“We feel a bit weird about wearing colours in this country. British fashion icons are grungy, they wear neutrals and are safe — if you wear colours, you’re made to feel different. We go away a lot, to Europe and America, as much to get dressed up and go out with like-minded people as anything else, because nobody gets dressed up here.”
These girls like to shop — a lot. “The first place I go in Selfridges is the Dior concession. I can guarantee I will like the Dior stuff. Bags, shoes, trainers, casual stuff, belts, sunglasses, lip glosses. I love it all.”
As if to illustrate, they both pull out a gooey, glittery pink Dior Addict lip gloss and top up their juicy kissers. Kate and Liz are dripping in ice: a Chopard watch, a Rolex with diamond bezel, earrings, necklaces. Money is no object. Both had £550 hair extensions cut out in a matter of days — “They gave us a headache.”
Is it any surprise that Dior has an advertising hoarding inside the Nikki Beach bar in St Tropez? Monett, a rich German woman who lives in Monte Carlo, loves Dior. “His clothes aren’t serious. They are perfect for a yacht party. It’s not metropolitan. I would never wear Dior in Germany. In Hamburg or London, you can’t run around in crazy yellow trousers, but here you can. Certainly, some of his looks are too Russian, if you know what I mean, and you can’t wear Dior head to toe, like you can with Cavalli.”
Kate and Liz prefer to do their Dior shopping in Marbella and Monaco. “Dior has just opened a shop in Marbella, where the stuff is more extrovert and OTT. I love the shop in Cannes — there is a lovely one on the Croisette. The bags are nicer — proper crackers, like the ones in the Dubai shop. It’s a more expensive range, a better range, because the customers are richer.”
This summer, they will be shaking their long, immaculately straight blonde hair in Ibiza, Miami, Marbella and New York. “I bought these for Ibiza,” she says, turning her heel for a look at her Dior mules. “They’re great, ’cos the heels don’t scuff.” Doesn’t she think they’re a bit ... “What, strippery? Yeah, I do,” she says, laughing.
And there’s the rub. The cheaper entry-level lines, the ones so diffuse from the original couture collection, are for the fashion ingénue. And they will sell — big time. Last year, the Dior Group turned profits of £1.7 billion. But with Galliano putting on £1m couture shows, it needs to. The vulgar-logoed Dior that you find in the shops finances Galliano’s creative pleasures. As one fashion historian said: “If this is the price we pay for him pushing forward the parameters of fashion, then it’s a price worth paying.”
And the price we pay is the pink-and-white plastic p*rno mules, at £200 a pair.
.
