What do you get when you mix an edgy menswear designer with a historic label best known for outfitting the likes of young Elizabeth TayloR? This isn’t the set-up for a nerdy fashion joke. It’s the basis for the documentary Dior & I, which screened at Tribeca this week. The short answer to the question is Raf SimoNS' acclaimed first collection for Christian Dior, after the Belgian designer was named creative director of the house in 2011. But the longer one isn’t as smooth or simple as one of the collection’s organza skirts. Dior & I shows Simons’ struggle––and ultimate triumph––in modernizing and maintaining the house’s name. “The past is not romantic for me,” Simons says in the film. “The future is romantic.”
Raf Simons is associated with a dark, techno-futuristic minimalism, Christian Dior with balletic romance and nostalgia. And yet, both men made clothes at a time when the world’s eyes were focused on the future, whether it was 1950s space travel or the 1990s Internet revolution. Throughout the film, Christian Dior’s spirit is felt by Raf Simons and the atelier at work, who sense his ghostly presence late at night in the workshop as they sew their sleeves and necklines. In fact, the ghost of Christian Dior makes several appearances throughout this film, via black-and-white flashbacks and words from his memoir. “I didn’t mean to revolutionize fashion,” echoes a deep and haunting voice near the beginning of the film.
Raf takes the weight of his predecessor and runs with it. He has two months to create his debut collection (to offer some perspective, collections normally take about six months to prepare) and we watch intimate footage as he meets the seamstresses for the first time and travels to the pink seaside home where Dior was raised. By the end of the film, choked up in tears, Raf Simons shows off his own collection: Gerhard Richter-inspired prints and dresses that are a sci-fi take on soft Dior femininity. And it all takes place against a stunning backdrop of ceiling-to-floor fresh flowers, Murakami meets The Secret Garden.
However, a lot can, and does, go wrong before that. The members of the Dior atelier, some of whom have worked with the house for over 40 years, are really the stars of the movie: clad in white lab coats, they frantically hand-sew the final touches just hours before the Spring/Summer 2012 show begins. In a Q&A after the screening, the director addressed this tension in the film between the past and future of fashion: “I knew the combination of Raf as being forward-looking and Dior, which obviously has such a long history and is steeped in tradition, was a story in itself. And, I thought this was an opportunity to show change and how modernity happens.”
But the similarities between the two men grow increasingly apparent in the film: both are guarded and private people, which conflicts with their larger-than-life personas. According to Tcheng, Simons was reluctant at first to take part in the film, and during the initial filming was shy and self-conscious in front of the camera. “But we got to spend time together at the end of the day and he would grill me about my favorite films and we bonded over mutual taste.” I couldn’t help thinking about the title’s reference to Borges &
Raf Simons is associated with a dark, techno-futuristic minimalism, Christian Dior with balletic romance and nostalgia. And yet, both men made clothes at a time when the world’s eyes were focused on the future, whether it was 1950s space travel or the 1990s Internet revolution. Throughout the film, Christian Dior’s spirit is felt by Raf Simons and the atelier at work, who sense his ghostly presence late at night in the workshop as they sew their sleeves and necklines. In fact, the ghost of Christian Dior makes several appearances throughout this film, via black-and-white flashbacks and words from his memoir. “I didn’t mean to revolutionize fashion,” echoes a deep and haunting voice near the beginning of the film.
Raf takes the weight of his predecessor and runs with it. He has two months to create his debut collection (to offer some perspective, collections normally take about six months to prepare) and we watch intimate footage as he meets the seamstresses for the first time and travels to the pink seaside home where Dior was raised. By the end of the film, choked up in tears, Raf Simons shows off his own collection: Gerhard Richter-inspired prints and dresses that are a sci-fi take on soft Dior femininity. And it all takes place against a stunning backdrop of ceiling-to-floor fresh flowers, Murakami meets The Secret Garden.
However, a lot can, and does, go wrong before that. The members of the Dior atelier, some of whom have worked with the house for over 40 years, are really the stars of the movie: clad in white lab coats, they frantically hand-sew the final touches just hours before the Spring/Summer 2012 show begins. In a Q&A after the screening, the director addressed this tension in the film between the past and future of fashion: “I knew the combination of Raf as being forward-looking and Dior, which obviously has such a long history and is steeped in tradition, was a story in itself. And, I thought this was an opportunity to show change and how modernity happens.”
But the similarities between the two men grow increasingly apparent in the film: both are guarded and private people, which conflicts with their larger-than-life personas. According to Tcheng, Simons was reluctant at first to take part in the film, and during the initial filming was shy and self-conscious in front of the camera. “But we got to spend time together at the end of the day and he would grill me about my favorite films and we bonded over mutual taste.” I couldn’t help thinking about the title’s reference to Borges &