Floral Tribute

Bringing couture techniques to menswear, the men’s atelier at Christian Dior is bursting with the great designer’s beloved lily of the valley

WORDS: STEPHEN DOIG

The energy in Paris is somewhat frenetic. Across the city, a series of explosive protests against President Macron’s retirement bill has left detritus and scorch-tinged banners among the pretty pavement cafés. But within the inner sanctum of the Dior Men atelier, a stone’s throw from the Avenue Montaigne, there’s an ecclesiastical sense of calm and order. This is a space of glacial white, an impression heightened by the vast windows through which spring sunshine streams; a world of method and precision sheltered from the tensions outside.

“We’re something very special here,” says Myriem Peyret, director of the men’s atelier and custodian of a studio that began life as a tailoring epicentre for men under Yves Saint Laurent when the wunderkind took over from Christian Dior on his untimely death in 1957. Today, led by British designer Kim Jones, this studio is busier — and more experimental — than ever. “Paris is the home of couture. The fact that we have a men’s atelier in-house is absolutely unique, and the craftsmanship is exceptional,” says Jones. Since taking over in 2018 (from Belgian Kris Van Assche), he has made it his mission to apply the kind of fantastical techniques seen in women’s couture to his menswear. The atelier is modest in scale compared with the four nearby workshops devoted to Dior’s womenswear and couture, but the skill and output are just as impressive. Specialising in shirtmaking, tailoring and pattern cutting, it is home to 17 artisans, some of whom have worked here for more than 20 years.

“We are always looking into the archives and reinterpreting couture designs to adapt them for men at the atelier,” says Jones. “There’s so much you cannot see, so much magic hidden in the construction.” He has been pushing the boundaries season after season during his tenure at Dior Men, from fantastical embroidery across suits to intricate beadwork on knitwear, and organza layers that evoke the maison’s women’s couture. For his autumn/winter 2023 collection, the designer explored the transition period between Monsieur Dior’s death and Yves Saint Laurent’s accession and the renewal of the house. And nothing speaks to a fresh sense of hope like the emerging buds of spring.

Chanel may lay claim to the camellia, but roses are synonymous with Dior, inspired by his childhood garden in Granville on the Normandy coast and the lush Eden of his Château de

La Colle Noire refuge in Provence. “After women, flowers are the most divine creations,” the designer once said. His favourite bloom was not the rose, however, but the lily of the valley, references to which Jones discovered in the archives in the first collections by Saint Laurent: in 1959 the designer created a spectacular shawl covered with buds of lily of the valley. An idea was sparked to fuse this most feminine couture design with men’s tailoring. Lilies of the valley weave their way throughout the history of Dior — on a 1954 gown created for French film star Françoise Arnoul, as the base for Diorissimo perfume, and expressed in the work of Saint Laurent, John Galliano and Raf Simons. This was the first incarnation of the simple poetry of the pretty white flower in the men’s collections, and to create a bouquet of three-dimensional flora Dior enlisted Maison Lemarié, ‘the last couture feather makers and florists in the world’, founded in 1880 and maker, coincidentally, of Chanel’s iconic camellia.

The delicate process of creating the flowers begins with hand-cutting circles of ivory organza about the size of a coin. From there, a craftsperson holds a minute heated tong-like device to the centre of each one. This causes the fabric to ‘wilt’ around the heated centre and create the distinctive bell shape of the flowers. This meticulous operation is repeated more than 2,000 times to create the required number for a floral lattice weaving its way across the torso of the jacket. The process takes two and a half weeks.

Once the individual flowers are secured on to organza-coated wire stems, the next stage of intricacies begins. “It was essential that the jacket would be constructed as the embroidery was applied, not a jacket with embroidery placed on top,” says Peyet of the garment whose decoration worked organically with the shape and folds of the jacket. As the stems form a single connected network, their application involves patience, dexterity and many pairs of white gloves.

The word difficile is uttered (somewhat darkly) across the atelier as Peyret describes applying each sprig with the added challenge that touching the actual ‘petals’ of the organza flowers would crush them. The monastic discipline of the atelier suddenly makes sense.

One honk of a gilet jaune horn outside and a whole bunch of exquisite organza blooms could end up in the compost bin. Apparently, disasters did occur during the crafting of prototypes; a bonding instrument used to heat the panels set fire to one of the jackets days before the show. But for those who watched the final look make its entrance in Paris in January, the effect was mesmeric, each tiny bud bristling as the model stomped down the catwalk. This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment belies the hours that went into the jacket’s construction. The atelier is now making them to order for private clients, although numbers will be extremely limited and the ateliers are already focusing on the next show. “We start a new season, just like the plants and flowers,” says Peyret. But the craft heritage they represent remains firmly rooted.