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For drama in the highest citadel of Paris fashion, the events of 1996-1997 can hardly be equaled: It was the year when John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, the British sons of a plumber and a taxi driver, respectively, were let loose on Christian Dior and Givenchy. It was the opening of the era of the designer as rock star, the crashing end of the discreet culture of postwar haute couture and the beginning of a whole new cycle of personality—brand wars acted out in the full glare of international publicity.
This rapid changing of the guard was orchestrated by Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, among whose large cluster of luxury holdings were the venerated haute couture houses of Dior and Givenchy. In the mid-nineties Arnault had to decide how to renew them. Hubert de Givenchy, who had founded his own house in 1952, before it was acquired by LVMH, was about to retire. Gianfranco Ferré, the Italian couturier, had been designing at Christian Dior since 1989.
Arnault moved with speed. First, Galliano was appointed to take over the house of Givenchy in 1995, but not for long. In 1996, when Ferré left, Galliano crossed over to take on design at Christian Dior. Within weeks, Alexander McQueen, the 27-year-old upstart bad boy of London fashion, was on the Eurostar from London, ready to assume the reins at Givenchy.
Shalom Harlow in McQueen for Givenchy, photographed by Peter Lindbergh, Vogue, April 1997.
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh, Vogue, April 1997
The shift in the axis of power toward the creative forces of London may have been horrifying to anyone with an ancien régime French frame of mind—what were these British guys with no experience in haute couture doing in Paris? But Arnault’s choices were soundly calculated. Galliano and McQueen were narrative designers, story-spinners, imaginative and romantic geniuses gifted with the ability to transform shows into theatrical happenings. Galliano brought along a whole gang of British-born talent to interpret his dreams: Steven Robinson as his first assistant, Pat McGrath on makeup, Guido Palau on hair, Stephen Jones on hats, Michael Howells on set design, and Jeremy Healy on music. Streams of delirious, delightful, elegantly humorous images of the Marchesa Casati, Edwardian ladies, fifties-era jolies madames, and geishas (all with a Christian Dior accent, of course) were poured out for his audiences, season after season.
But there was far more to it than showmanship. Both designers also came as master technicians, fully fledged with the know-how to communicate with the in-house seamstresses, cutters, and embroiderers—even though neither of them actually spoke French. Galliano, by then 35, had been perfecting his craft—including an obsession with bringing back bias cutting—since he first stepped out of Central Saint Martins in 1984 with Les Incroyables, a collection that (after all) already showed his deep fascination with a French historical theme. He was to return to the same post–French Revolutionary source in his Givenchy couture collection, designing a clutch of empire-waisted, puff-sleeved dresses in organdie clearly inspired by the Directoire.
A model wears the Galliano for Dior dress made famous by Nicole Kidman at the 1997 Oscars.
Photo: Condé Nast Archive
McQueen, though much younger, had learned his trade as a teenage tailoring apprentice at Anderson & Sheppard, Koji Tatsuno, and Romeo Gigli, even before he took a master’s degree at Central Saint Martins. His ability to take a pair of shears and cut into a bolt of cloth to produce a fully realized sculptural piece without a pattern was legendary. At Givenchy, he translated his signature sharp-shouldered tailoring into pristine haute couture trouser suits, immaculate white lace frock coats with cascading tiered skirts, and hussar jackets bristling with gold frogging.So there were never any complaints from behind the scenes that Galliano or McQueen didn’t know what they were doing. It was other factors entirely that were to bring this phase of the Brit invasion of Paris to an end. Galliano’s reign at Christian Dior lasted until public anti-Semitic remarks prompted his dismissal in 2011. McQueen broke with Givenchy in 2001, when he sold 51 percent of his own business to LVMH’s rival conglomerate, the Gucci Group, which was then run by Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole. What began with a drama ended in other dramas. But McQueen always said he had a great fondness and respect for the women he’d worked with in the Givenchy studio. What he learned from them about dressmaking in the nineties nurtured his own sublime collections from that time forth.
Three images from McQueen’s Givenchy debut.
Photo: Condé Nast Archive
The post When Fashion Renegades John Galliano and Alexander McQueen Landed at Dior and Givenchy, Paris Fashion Was Forever Changed appeared first on Vogue.
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