Where Dali meets Dior
Raf Simons taps modern art for a startling range of clothes and accessories
RAF SIMONS at Christian Dior has delved into the wonderful world of fine art with a collection of gorgeous apparel and accessories for the coming autumn and winter. A former art-gallery owner, Simons has named previous designs after artists Christian Berard, Bernard Buffet and Pablo Picasso. “Art is at the centre of everything,” he insists.
A line called “The Persistence of Memory” recalls Salvador Dali’s famous melting-watches painting that helped give birth to surrealism. So too did Rene Magritte’s dreamlike images, here represented in rings that take the shape of clouds and eyelashes.
Pop art’s purveyor-in-chief, Andy Warhol, has his stamp on funky leather handbags and clutch bags that bear his sketches of high-heel shoes.
Elsewhere, glittering earrings resemble fingernails, jewellery adopts animal settings, sunglasses crawl with cool bugs and black slippers and boots are adorned with instantly recognisable artwork in embroidery.
