Monday Muse: Dior’s New Look Inspires Rochas and Thom Browne

Dior's New Look

Dior’s Bar Jacket, part of the New Look collection

Dior's New Look

Dior’s New Look silhouette

 

Few fashion moments resonate throughout time the way that Christian Dior’s New Look does. No matter what the trends, what the latest advances in fabric tech, what the newest collab is or how new or established a designer, Dior’s now-classic silhouette is something that comes down the runway season after season. This time around, Thom Browne and Rochas’ Marco Zanini, two designers with completely different points of view, visited the fit-and-flare shape with dramatically different results.

Debuting in 1947, the New Look collection (which was actually called the Carrolle line by the designer) was a complete turn from the fashions of the era. Instead of looking to menswear and the somber inspirations of the post-war economy, Dior looked to classic feminine shapes for his collection, which featured full, below-the-knee skirts, cinched waists and natural, curved shoulders. The Bar Jackets, which epitomized the new ladylike silhouette, became instantly covetable and nearly iconic overnight. Throughout the next decade, Dior would continue to create variations on his New Look, changing the length of the skirt, the lapels and neckline of the jackets and more, but what continued throughout his experimentation was the curve-hugging, hourglass shape that made the New Look so memorable and desirable.

Rochas Fall 2013

Rochas Fall 2013

Thom Browne Fall 2013

Thom Browne Fall 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the Fall 2013 collections, the Bar Jacket and New Look silhouette appeared — as it always does — but the look was given two very different treatments by two very different designers. Marco Zanini, who helms Rochas, sent down looks inspired by classic womenswear pieces, including a skirt suit that recalled the classic Dior New Look. But Zanini added an extra dose of French louche, making the usually severe look a little more relaxed and exaggerating the jacket’s peplum and the rounded shoulders. He even paired the look with ultra feminine Mary Jane shoes, further emphasizing the way the New look shape brings out every girl’s inner lady. Thom Browne, who showed his collection fresh off of the attention that he gained when Michelle Obama wore his coat to the President’s second inauguration, also riffed on the New Look, though he stuck to his usual M.O. of turning the fashion world on its ear. His looks included the cinched-waist and hourglass shape, but they were all done in grey flannels and checks — his fabrics of choice for men’s and womenswear — and models sported makeup and hair that was part Versaille revolution and part Through the Looking Glass. But even through all the theatricality (there were wounded soldiers, mannequins dressed in head-to-toe Thom, wearing crowns of thorns and bleeding red grosgrain, strewn on the runway) the New Look shape showed through. So no matter what a designer’s look, there are some things that just transcend trends and designer ego. And the classic female silhouette is one of them.

Photos courtesy Style.com and LIFE

 

 

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Author:Fashion Trends Daily Staff

Fashion Trends Daily Editors deliver the scoop on fashion, beauty, celebrity and runway trends.