In context: Rene Gruau and John Galliano

I've blogged about Rene Gruau before and was delighted to see that John Galliano had sifted through the archive to draw inspiration from a man who helped to mould the Dior image with his illustrations throughout the 50's and 60's.

I have much love for Gruau's work but his books are all out of print and sell for serious money on eBay - the closest thing I have to a print is a card I received for my university graduation, which has lasted through several house moves and now has pride of place on my fridge.

Gruau's work is painterly, spontaneous, cheeky, seductive, inimitable and just a tiny bit risqué - all words that you could also use to describe Galliano's work.

Gruau'l illustrations for Dior

This illustration was used for Dior Cherie and was also a promotional image for the recent Gruau/Dior exhibition at Somerset house

It's great to see that Galliano hasn't used the clichéd 50's silhouettes that are being done to death.  His subversive eye tallies more with translating Gruau's often abstract paintmarks and translating them into dresses.  A Philip Treacy headpiece looks like a brush stroke and an exclamation point to top off an outfit.  A bow mutates into a shimmering tulle overlay on a ballgown.  A train folds and is tucked so it becomes a whole with a dress.  All the dresses have a fluidity that is synonymous with Gruau's work.  More brush strokes are transposed onto the skirts themselves.  Gruau's trademark love of opera gloves is evident.  And the make-up!  Ah, the make-up... No shading - just black, white and red.

What do you think of Galliano's couture?

The Clothes On Their Backs

Riccardo Tisci's Givenchy couture offerings this season were all about Asian influence. It's little wonder, because Asia and all the rich facets of it's culture are slowly permeating Western consciousness. Asia also has a major commercial influence, what with Prada joining the ever-increasing ranks of companies choosing to list in Hong Kong as opposed to their home markets.

This collection draws on a LOT of Asian influences (butoh, Kazuo Ohno, anime, embroidery, cranes, dragons... the list goes on) but I'm really interested in (as far as my incredibly amateurish, untrained eyes can see) the samurai and origami influences.

Japanese samurai circa 1870

When you go on websites that feature this collection and the insano, day-glo Philip Treacy headgear, the comments section is inevitably clogged with cries of 'VIKING!' - you can really see the influence of the samurai helmets.  Irrelevant note alert - One of my favourite places to go in the V&A Museum in London is the Japanese section to look at all the samurai uniform.  It's all so intricate and well crafted.  Every aspect of the samurai uniform is carefully considered; every colour, every fold, every image has a cultural or practical significance.  Perhaps it's this attention to detail that aligns it so well with Givenchy.

Samurai circa 1880

You can really see the samurai and origami influences in the sharpness and angularity of the shoulders.  The pink motif above looks like it could be a representation of a samurai helmet (or a backpack in the shape of a bug if you think about it in a Rorschach kinda way).  I love the pristine whiteness of this dress.  It's like a fresh piece of paper begging to be folded into all sorts of magical shapes.

Origami samurai helmets

The headgear made so much more sense when I saw these mini samurai helmets made out of paper.  I know that it's supposed to be based on robots... but I like thinking it's an origami samurai helmet.  Let me have my wrongfooted delusion, ok?  Here is a link if you want to make a tiny samurai helmet and wear it on your finger.

I'm not very good at conclusions, so let me just say that the Givenchy collection is beautiful and batshit crazy.  Just the way I like it.