Christian Dior
It wasn't until I started reading The Beautiful Fall (the book) recently that I realised how important and meaningful haute couture is to old Parisian couture houses like Dior. This show was A-freaking-MAZING. I have never been as awed by a haute couture show as by this one. Galliano revived haute couture with this collection. The theme was Japanese, and you'll be absolutely amazed by all the intricate details put into each piece of couture -from the accessories down to the material and little beads.
Left: Typical Dior silhouette with the Japanese flower details and origami. Right: A very spring-feeling dress.
Left: I LOVE this dress. I saw a HQ photo of this dress, and the flowers are SO detailed. I literally stared at this dress for 5 mins. Right: You see that square in the front? It is imitating one of those paper-folded games. And there are actually branches on her head.
Left: Such craftsmenship -look at the way the ruffles swirl around her. Right: SO pretty. It's like she's wearing white dress and has a pink printed cloth artistically wrapped around her.
There two dresses are much darker. Left: A somewhat realistic outfit. Right: The dress makes the model look like one of those evil flowers you see in anime cartoons. Seriously, how do they make the shape actually stay?
These dresses are every girly girls' fantasies. The beadings, sequins, tails and puffed-up bottom -sigh... Btw, you MUST go look at HQ photos of these dresses. You seriously can't appreciate the dresses until you've seen them blown up large.
The last dress -wow wow wow. This dress is like a combination of a huge typical wedding dress and origami design. On the chiffon, there are a lot of beads and sequins to make the dress shine. And the origami part -you can even see how it imitates every fold of origami. Can you say genius? She looks sort of like a swan, a very exquisite swan of course.
Even the accessories and makeup were Japanese-inspired. Talk about serious art here!
Ahh, and the show of course ends with Galliano himself all madeup and dressed-up.
Valentino
There were some elegant dresses, but to be honest, it was really just a typical Valentino couture show.
Elie Saab
Lots of shimmer and glamorous dresses. Most of them are actually very wearable -perhaps we'll be seeing some on the red carpet at the Oscars?
All credits of the photography goes to Don Ashby and Marcio Madeira.