Mexican style and sensibility by Christian Dior at the Designer of Dreams exhibition, Victoria & Albert Museum London

Christian Dior, Designer of Dreams at V&A Museum, London.
Photo by Lucia Carpio.

To look at the influence of Mexican cultures and sensibility in fashion we enjoy today one goes back not just to the highly popular Frida Khalo exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum last year, but also to Christian Dior, the French fashion couturier whose Designer of Dreams exhibition (a sold-out event) currently running at the V & A as well.

Monsieur Dior (born 1905 and died 1957) took inspiration from influences around the world for his ground-breaking looks.  He loved to travel as early as in his twenties when he visited places far and wide, from London to Athens and Istanbul, he had spent a year in the Balearic Islands.

Born in Normandy, his love of global cultures grew as his business prospered.  Recognising the importance of the international market, he had made references to different countries through his various creations and collections,  exhibiting his admiration of countries that included  India, Egypt, Japan, South Africa Mexico and Australia.  Monsieur Dior named several of his dresses after a country and several of these are on show in the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition currently running at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London until 1st September 2019.

This dress above is one of the dresses that demonstrated Dior's interest in Mexican style and art. His bold A-line skirts, which have become a signature of the house, are reminiscent of the Tehuana style, complete with a sombrero hat. 
The current house creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri also revisited the Mexican journey with her Escaramuza Charra show last year.

Christian Dior, Designer of Dreams at V&A Museum, London.
Photo by Lucia Carpio.

The creation above here is another Mexican-inspired dress by Monsieur Dior,  It was referred to as a dance dress with a label  'PRINTEMPS-ETE Christian Dior MADE IN FRANCE' on the inside.

According to information provided by the V&A, the dress was featured in French Vogue (March 1953) and L'Officiel (April 1953).  In the summer of 1953, the Duchess of Windsor (née Mrs Wallis Simpson) chose a Dior dress made in the same fabric and printed with a dot and scallop pattern to wear at the Circus Ball in Paris (American Vogue, 15 August 1953).

Further information from the V&A stated that this is a Mexico evening dress made in Paris in 1953, designed by Christian Dior, and made by Bianchini-Férier, Atelier Germaine.

Materials and techniques used included  printed silk organza, boned, net foundation, crêpe de Chine stiffened with net and organza, metal hooks and eyes.

Sportswear and Outdoor brands championing transparency

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity launched to accelerate the transition to a circular economy, the apparel industry is one of the culprits in causing our environmental and pollution problems, as globally a mind-boggling 73% of materials used for clothing are being sent to landfill or incinerated every year, with less than 1% being recycled to make new clothing.

Designs by Christopher Raeburn at the Jackets Required London trade show in January 2019.
The designer , a pioneer in recycling and upcycling, set up RÆBURN, a collaborative, creative fashion studio where daily design meets painstaking production, alongside monthly events, discussions and workshops.
Photo by Lucia Carpio.

Thus it is welcomed news that Fashion Revolution’s Fashion Transparency Index 2019 reveals today that three sportswear and outdoor brands are leading the way on transparency among the world’s 200 largest fashion brands and retailers by disclosing a wide range of human rights policies, commitments and outcomes, as well as who their suppliers are.

Adidas, Reebok and Patagonia each score a total 64% out of 250 possible points, followed by Esprit and H&M in the 61-70%. C&A, ASOS, Puma, Nike, Converse, Jordan, The North Face, Timberland, Wrangler, Vans and Marks & Spencer rank at the top end of the 51-60% range.

This is the first year since the Fashion Transparency Index’s inception that brands will score over 60%, showing that progressive brands are now taking real, tangible steps to disclose more about their social and environmental policies, practices and impacts.

However no brands score above the 70% range showing that there is still a long way to go towards transparency amongst all major fashion brands.

Since 2016, Fashion Revolution has tracked global brands and benchmarked their performance against five key areas: policy and commitments, governance, traceability, supplier assessment and remediation, and spotlight issues, which this year focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Sarah Ditty, Policy Director and report author says: “The progress we are seeing this year, coupled with the feedback Fashion Revolution has received from brands, suggests that inclusion in the Fashion Transparency Index has motivated major fashion brands to be more transparent. We are seeing many brands publishing their supplier lists and improving their scores year on year.”

Amongst the 98 brands reviewed in 2017, 2018 and again in 2019 there has been an 8.9% increase in the average score since they were first included in the Index.

11 brands have increased their scores by over 10% this year, showing significant efforts to be more transparent, and data shows that more brands are embarking on their journey towards greater transparency.

The report shows the following findings:

·         Brands are disclosing very little about their efforts to empower women and girls and achieve gender equality, despite the fact that women make up the majority of the workforce in the fashion industry from factory to shop floor.

·         Some progress has been made on disclosing equal pay policies and the gender pay gap by major fashion brands, but little is published about how brands are addressing gender-based labour violations in garment factories.

·         55% out of the 200 brands are publishing the annual carbon footprint in the company's own sites, although only 19.5% disclose carbon emissions in the supply chain – where over 50% of the industry’s emissions occur.

·         Given that major brands are expecting trust and transparency from suppliers, they too should share more information publicly about their own commitments and efforts to be responsible business partners. Only 9% of brands disclose a formal process for gathering supplier feedback on the company's purchasing practices and just 6.5% of brands publish a policy of paying their suppliers within 60 days. 

The highest scoring brands in the Spotlight Issues section this year are H&M, Adidas and Reebok, Patagonia as well as Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius and Zara (all owned by Inditex), ASOS and C&A, respectively.

Dior's slogan T-shirt ensemble is Fashion Museum Bath's Dress of the Year 2017

Whether as a form of protest against social injustices or for raising awareness on special issues, T-shirts with messages and slogans have long been a favourite way for expressing one's opinions and beliefs.

As high-profile sexual harassment scandals around the world continue to make headlines, and women's role in today's society is evolving, it is very apt that UK’s prestigious Fashion Museum Bath (in the historical Roman town of Bath in Somerset) has named an ensemble from Christian Dior’s spring/summer 2017 collection, featuring a white  T-shirt with the slogan‘We Should All Be Feminists’ as its Dress of the Year 2017.  Traditionally chosen by a respected member of the fashion industry, this year's choice was selected by Sarah Bailey of Red Magazine.

An ensemble featuring a white T-shirt printed with slogan 'We Should All Be Feminists’ is selected as Dress of the Year 2017 at Fashion Museum Bath.  To complete the ensemble is a black wool jacket and black tulle skirt
and also a black knitted underwear.
Image from Fashion Museum Bath.

“I think a T-shirt, because it is so basic, is the easiest way to display your ideas. The slogan ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ takes over this blank space and plays with the political value of appearances,” said Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri who added she was honoured that her designs had been selected.

Paired with the T-shirt to complete the ensemble is a black wool jacket and black tulle skirt and also a black knitted underwear. 

Miss Bailey, Hearst Lifestyle group’s editorial director, explained: “I was very inspired by the appointment of Maria Grazia Chiuri at Christian Dior. She is the first female Creative Director in the history of the house and I admired the vigour with which she immediately started challenging the conversation around women, creativity and the gendering of genius. Her social media campaign (before we even saw any of her designs) #TheWomenBehindMyDress – heroing the petits mains in the Dior atelier – was brilliant, moving and completely on point.

The late Monsieur Christian Dior would be pleased as he helped to launch the Fashion Museum by allowing his first collection to be brought to England to be shown for the museum's benefit at the Savoy Hotel in London in April 1950.  

Councillor Paul Myers, Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Cabinet Member for Economic and Community Regeneration, said: “The ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ T-shirt ensemble is one of the most talked about fashions of 2017, by Maria Grazia Chiuri, in Dior’s 70th anniversary year. What a wonderful addition to the outstanding museum collection of historical and contemporary dress at Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Fashion Museum. We are most grateful to Sarah Bailey for her careful consideration and for making such an inspired selection for Dress of the Year 2017. Thank you too to Dior for so generously donating the ensemble to the Fashion Museum.”

The Dress of the Year Collection at the Fashion Museum began in 1963, when the museum was founded as the Museum of Costume. Since then, a leading commentator and expert on fashion has been invited each year to select an ensemble, or ensembles, from those shown by the world’s designers during international fashion weeks.

Fashion Museum Bath '2016 Dress of the year' by JW Anderson for Loewe.
Photo © Lucia Carpio 2017.

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Fashion Museum Bath's 2016 Dress of the Year was an ensemble by JW Anderson.  It comprises a cream mohair tweed knitted dress with a leather bustier that Jonathan Anderson designed for Loewe.  which came complete with a menswear ensemble.

© Lucia Carpio 2017

The Dress of the Year 2017 will be on display at the Fashion Museum Bath until January 1, 2019. It will be the 100th object in the Museum’s A History of Fashion in 100 Objects exhibition.

Christian Dior's recent couture show delights the sensual senses as models walk on a purple stage

Photo by Content Editor Lucia Carpio at Mayfield Lavender field in Banstead, Surrey, UK..

Christian Dior's latest haute couture catwalk show "The Garden of Earthly Delights" set inside the Rodin Museum in Paris was a big hit among the fashion press. The setting was a huge, abstract painted cube of perspex of a conservatory garden that featured myriad multicolored panels — and some even tripped on the giant colored fruit scattered around the floor.

MFFashion.com names it "the best of show". (To view video of show, click here.)

The Guardian newspaper in London referred to it as "both a celebration of beauty and a commentary on the fashion industry's commodification of beauty.  According to Creatove Director Raf Simons. the fashion collection, based on a Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch's painting had little to do with flowers, though models paraded the Autumn-Winnter 2015-16 collection during Paris Fashion Week on a purple catwalk, as if walking in a field of purple-coloured flowers.

As reported in The Guardian, Simons explained: “I was intrigued by the idea of forbidden fruit,
and what that meant now. The idea of purity and innocence versus luxury and decadence and
how that is encapsulated by the idea of Dior’s garden.” This garden, he went on to say, is “no longer a flower garden but a sexual one”.

The feminine collection had a Midieval feel to it, featuring rich and luxurious fabrics ranging from crepe silks to taffetas and velvets with a touch of fur.

Content Editor Lucia Carpio enjoying a personal experiece of a garden of earthly delights at
the Mayfield Lavender farm in Surrey, UK.

On a more personal note, our content editor Lucia Carpio recently visited the Mayfield Lavender farm in Banstead, Surrey, and experienced her own "purple" moment while walking among rows and rows of lavender.  "Intoxicated by the sweet scent and serenaded by the buzzing bees, I enjoyed this tremendous garden of earthly delights on a different level," she said.