Dior’s modern romanticism, cascades of gold for Saint-Laurent

Day two, and in Paris the giants are immediately taking to the catwalk. Jonathan Anderson, at Dior, is set on romanticising, elevating, softening and modernising. This is the aim he set at the start of his journey, exactly one year ago, and whilst it is still a long way from being fully realised, it no longer seems to be merely a theory.

 Of course, with every step you can sense Anderson’s struggle to adapt to a code that simply isn’t his own, to work with a concept of fashion that is far too prim and proper to lend itself to modernist upheavals; yet this time, the conflict evolves into a vision that is, if nothing else, subtle. Unresolved, yet not oppressive. Metaphorically speaking, we have moved from tempera to watercolour.

Anderson takes his cue from Dior, the master of the circular cut, and builds on this by shortening hems, multiplying layers and petals, playing with flowing lines and conceiving the dress as closely as possible to the simplicity of a roll of fabric. There are quite a few creations on the catwalk – out in the open under the blinding early-afternoon light – that look as though they’ve barely been sketched out. Fair enough, though it’s a fine line between fluid and shapeless or dishevelled.

Anderson follows in the footsteps of Blazy at Chanel, but here the woman at the heart of the collection is less clearly defined, so that the collage of so many different elements appears precisely as a collage, rather than as a prismatic harmony. It will take time, one might say. The same time it takes for the wenwan nuts, used as invitations, to become precious – though we mustn’t forget that in today’s fashion world, nobody has that sort of time.

Rumours of Anthony Vaccarello’s departure from Saint-Laurent are rife, but unconfirmed. The fashion show, however, seems to lend credence to them: a cascade of gold from start to finish beneath giant chandeliers suspended in mid-air – also made of gold – and a voluptuous, mournful finale in black, with Charlotte Gainsbourg singing in a tuxedo. It doesn’t get much more celebratory or more Saint-Laurent than this. Indeed, it is Vaccarello’s most vintage and archive-inspired show to date; he has certainly been Saint Laurent’s golden boy in recent years. If this is his farewell, it is magnificent, worthy of a true prima donna – a role he has earned. Stylistically, however, it lacks that perverse yet elegant touch that has been Vaccarello’s hallmark.