PARIS (AP) — Jonathan Anderson arrived at Paris couture week with the fashion world still waiting to see the Dior wedding dress he made for Taylor Swift.On Monday, on the first day, he tried to give it something else to look at.Three days after Swift married NFL star Travis Kelce at New York’s Madison Square Garden, with both dressed by Dior, Anderson returned to the runway with a sculptural, heavily pleated haute couture collection inspired by American artist Lynda Benglis.The commission was a coup for the LVMH-owned house and for Anderson, the 41-year-old Northern Irish designer appointed a year ago to overhaul all of Dior’s fashion lines. For months, industry watchers had bet on American names, such as Ralph Lauren, or on Vivienne Westwood, whom Swift wears often. The one dress the world wanted to see was the one Anderson would not show. So on Monday he changed the subject — to art.
Poured, not sewnThe collection tried to move the conversation from Swift’s hidden gown to the work of Benglis, known since the late 1960s for pouring latex onto gallery floors and letting metal fold and sag into shape. Dior workrooms were treated as a version of her studio — a place where flat fabric is pressed, knotted and bent into three dimensions.Benglis bends flat material into shape; so, in the end, does couture.The clothes followed that idea. A skirt of silver-foiled petals moved with each step. A strapless silver lamé gown was cinched with an oversized bow. Trousers and blouses were finished in tight hand-pressed pleats.
