Who’s Next at Dior?

Raf Simons is leaving Dior, news that is causing many to stare at their phones in disbelief and others to audibly ask, “What?” No one really saw this coming.

Cathy Horyn said as much in her report after Sidney Toledano, Dior’s chief executive, made the statement of Simons’ intended departure. Remember that hers is an opinion built not only on tenured experience alone but ears that keep close to the industry’s inner circles. She gets the good (or shocking, or foreshadowing) word first.

But for the rest of us — those who don’t personally know Simons beyond a documentary about him, who aren’t privy to conversations that happen backstage or in some Parisian atelier — asked “What?!” with such convicted confusion because Raf Simons at Dior made so much sense.

The house of Dior is old world glamour and high design and game-changing shapes, a history-creating standard-setter that successfully caused sartorial amnesia in many women who truly could not remember: what even came before Dior? Raf Simons brought something similar thanks to his respect for those who held the spot before him, an appropriate level of nostalgia for the brand in its early days and at the same time, a command of his own personal vision. If you were ever a fan of Jil Sander when Simons designed and remember your fashion 101 homework (see: the New Look era of Christian Dior), then you know that every item of clothing to walk since his first collection in 2012 was a healthy dose of both. For at least a few years, Raf’s eye under the house’s roof produced consistent beauty.

Why he’s leaving remains formally unknown. (Though of course, the gossip had its leash in mouth before Simons has even had a chance to put on his sneakers.) What’s more interesting is where he will go. To focus on his menswear label? Somewhere else? Something new? He’s an artist, so it won’t be nothing. The man has to create.

But the other question, of course, is who will fill Raf Simons’ shoes?

Will he or she “just” fill them, or will this be the kind of young blood (like Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga) who shakes up the system and shocks us all, even more so than that first bit of audible-gasp-inducing news?

Images via Vogue Runway

The post Who’s Next at Dior? appeared first on Man Repeller.