Dior holds first fashion show in Dubai

(19 Mar 2019) LEADIN:
French fashion house Dior has held its first ever catwalk show in Dubai.
The haute couture collection featured 15 entirely new creations for the Arab audience.
STORYLINE:
Lights up – and the catwalk comes alive.
Under a large circus-style tent, Dior showcases its latest haute couture collection to a crowd of Mideast-based fashionistas, social media figures, celebrities, buyers, designers and editors.
It's the first show in Dubai for the French fashion house, which initially presented the Spring-Summer 2019 haute couture collection in Paris in January.
Tonight's (Monday) presentation, however, includes 15 entirely new creations unveiled especially for the show's design conscious Arab Gulf-based audience.
Dubai's exuberant displays of luxury and the city's surreal, futuristic-looking skyline are the ideal backdrop to the show, designed by Dior's artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri.
The well-heeled Dubai crowd is wowed as models in chic sequined helmets present the pieces inspired by Chiuri's memory and imagination of the circus.
Dior has a history with the big top, with the circus theme first appearing in a 1955 styled photo and reappearing under John Galliano's creative direction.
The haute couture collection includes details like a "tattooed" body suit that conjured up images of Victorian-era circus performers and a tulle jumpsuit of multi-coloured streaks in satin bands and dramatically square shoulders.
Haute couture is an artisan-based method of making clothes that dates back over 150 years. The eye-wateringly expensive garments, shown in collections in Paris twice a year, are bought by a core group of no more than a few hundred rich women around the world.
The exclusive pieces at the invite-only show, taking place in a public park, reflect in many ways Dubai's own fantastical ambitions to become a global fashion and design hub.
Minna Joseph, who attends the show in a tulle skirt of her own creation, says it was one of the best shows she's ever seen:
"I thought it was fantastic, it was super magical, and the cuts and the textures, the colours – it was just phenomenal," she says.
"It had a lot a lot of layers, a lot of ruffles and the designs just spoke to my heart."
"Dior is fashion, Dior is timeless, Dior is the house that takes down all houses," adds fashion and lifestyle blogger Mahmoud el-Sidani.
A more than 1 billion US Dollars project called the Dubai Design District, or D3, was launched in recent years with offices dedicated to the fashion industry.
The district's modern architecture and modish cafes cater to fashion editors of magazines like Vogue Arabia, emerging designers and local artists who can afford the steeply priced office space.
Despite Dubai's creative push, the emirate does not have a major fashion week. In a first in 2015, Chanel held a show in Dubai to unveil a cruise collection by Karl Lagerfeld.
Still, Dubai is a major shopping destination, drawing tens of millions of visitors from around the world to its more than 40 malls each year. The retail and wholesale sector is the biggest single contributor to Dubai's economy, according to the Oxford Business Group.
"Today Dior is in Dubai. This is the biggest example that the UAE is making a place for itself on the fashion map," says Lebanese TV personality Annabella Hilal.
While Joseph adds that it's amazing to witness the collection at this park in Dubai.

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