I remember very well the first time Dior captured my attention. I was going trough the pages of one of my grandma's magazines, Vanidades, and there were these three dresses, fully embroidered tulle dresses in pink degrade, red degrade, and green degrade, wore by Linda Evangelista, Karolina Kurkova and Naomi Campbell (I didn't knew her names until later in 2007 or so) they were amazing, dreamy, the ultimate dresses, I read the little article next to them and there they were, the two names that will change my perspective on fashion and therefore, LIFE. Christian Dior and John Galliano.
Two years later and with internet access I remembered those three dresses and right away I googled Christian Dior. Going trough webs I found a video, it was the Dior Haute Couture show at Versailles, and when I saw the fist look, an embroidered black bar jacket with a matching pencil skirt, opera gloves and a beret on Gisselle Bundchen I was amazed one more time, but then... As the show kept going... I wasn't that amazed, because I didn't liked the dresses, I didn't understand them, I asked to myself, Who will wear that? I was so confused with these new world I was beginning to discover. Then John Galliano appeared in his iconic Matador suit and I thought "So this is the designer", I wasn't amazed, I was even more confused, "Why is he wearing that? Is it supposed to be inspired in Versailles and Marie Antoinette? I didn't understand anything at all.
Then in 2008 I saw the pictures from the Spring Couture show and I was like "This is so over the top, it's just too much" and I showed the pictures to my best friend, Wendy, and she was so amazed by the dresses, and I asked her, WHY? She answered "Just look at them, look at the work" And I started to focus on the details ad thinking over and over "Why is this so great for some and why I don't like it?"
I started to get more interested in fashion and the secrets of it. Who was Christian Dior? and Why does John Galliano does this to his legacy? So i started to read web articles about Haute Couture and Dior. I quickly learned what couture is and who Dior was and what he did in fashion, his gift to the world, The New Look, and the other fantastic silhouettes. I learned that he wanted to make the woman look pretty again by looking back to the time when his mother used fantastic gowns, inspiring the dresses in flowers, etc.
And then the Fall - Winter 2008 Couture came. The one that take my breath away, the one that defined a new era of thinking. When the first look came out, it was it, I knew it, it was PERFECT. A recreation of the new look, the dress moved so well with the body, it dominated the runway, and the orchestral/ opera-like music in the background... it was just perfect. And this time when Galliano came out, I gave him a standing ovation in front of my PC.
Now that I knew all about Christian Dior the man, it was time to read about Galliano. And it didn't take much time, because it was so easy for me, I was reading about a man who made a woman believe she was Cleopatra, I was reading about the man who made the women fantasize about being Marie Antoinete, Queen of France, I was reading about the man who, trough the clothes, made woman DREAM AND BELIEVE. I wanted to know everything about him, I wanted to him, I wanted to be next to him to lear everything he had to offer. AND I STILL WANTING TO.
I will always think of him as the man who made me believe.
