Paris Fashion Week

Christian Dior, Spring/Summer '09 (scroll down to read the review)
Christian Dior
A whiff of the 198Os wafted brazenly onto to the Dior runway this afternoon in Paris, where short and sizzling were the order of the day. With not a single pant in sight (unless you count the skin-tight black leggings), the focus was on a cinched waist and gleaming set of mile long legs.

Clearly designer John Galliano has one thing on his mind for spring, and it does not involve hauling oneself onto public transportation for a dreary day at the office. Lifted onto leopard platforms with dripped wax candle heels, the models sashayed by in flouncy little sheer numbers, with their built-in underpants on plain view.

Up top, things were a bit more structured though no less come-hither: halter tops were fashioned out of python or covered in rows of gold studding, while angular stud-speckled bustiers bulged out in the sort of architectural formations Madonna favours on stage.

For evening, the sheer hems dropped to the floor, but those stick thin legs were on plain sight under the tiers and knife pleats. Perhaps to demonstrate his newly honed mastery of the term 'restraint' (for him, that is) the only touch in Galliano's parade that reeked of weirdness were the up-dos that had the model's crimped out hair pulled into magnificent hourglass shaped cones.

Even the designer's grand exit took place out of theatrical costume. He stepped out for a dramatic bow in black pants and a vest minus shirt, his bare chest a testimony to the intimate terms on which he is familiar with his steamy theme.