The first Christian Dior campaign by newly appointed Artistic Director Raf Simons is unveiled for Spring Summer 13.
Christian Dior’s latest womenswear campaign has been released for Spring Summer 13 under the creative eye of Artist Director Raf Simons. Simons took the reins of the iconic French fashion house last year, showing his first collection much to the approval of the fashion industry at Paris Fashion Week last September.
Harking back to Dior’s signature ‘New Look’, the SS13 collection comprises ladylike florals, puffball skirts, impeccably tailored nipped-in suits and an overall air of elegance and glamour. The collection was a welcomed departure from the theatrics and flamboyancy of Simon’s predecessor, John Galliano.
For SS13 Simons has enlisted friend and fellow Belgian Willy Vanderperre to shoot the campaign and it is a stark contrast to previous Dior ads – flamboyant affairs featuring the crème de la crème of models from Kate Moss to Gisele Bundchen. This season however, Simons has decided to strip back the campaigns to a minimalist aesthetic using five new faces of modelling Daria Strokous, Anna Martynova, Diane Conterato, Nicole Pollard and Marie Piovesan – resulting in stunning imagery that simply highlights the clothes.
The no frills campaign features the models in a series of ‘New Look’ poses, referencing Dior’s original feminine aesthetic from the 1940s. This is juxtaposed against an ultra-modern, surrealist background of Magritte-style clouds, blooms and skies.
Simons has certainly brought some of that minimalist style he refined in his previous role at Jil Sander to the latest Christian Dior campaign, and it seems to have worked. Without relying on a famous face or a super styled shoot, this ad campaign is all about the clothes – and so it should be.