Sequins need not apply: Dior Homme delivers minimalist menswear

Sequins need not apply: Dior does minimalism

PARIS — Less was more at Dior Homme on Saturday, with a minimalist spring-summer menswear 2011 show of raw seams and flowing panels that proved you can spend more for fewer finishings.

Deep-cut V-neck tank tops were left open down one side to expose a wide swath of skin. Blazers cut sharp through the shoulder, and lapels dissolved at what normally would have been the hemline into billowing lengths of fine wool fabric. Blazers were shorn of their closures, and long trenchcoats were missing their sleeves. The drop-crotched pants fit so low on the hips that one model on the verge of losing his had to stop and hitch them up.

Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, a devoted Dior Homme fan who’s normally on hand for the shows, praised the collection as “very elegant.”

“Dior suits are the best made in the world — nobody does clothes like that,” the ponytailed designer told The Associated Press in a backstage interview, adding that he and his male members of his posse were all wearing — tight — Dior suits.

Still, Lagerfeld, acknowledged he “may be a little old” for the flesh-exposing looks on Saturday’s catwalk. “You have to be very young” to wear such looks, he said.

Dior Homme designer Kris Van Assche, a Belgian who showed his signature line in Paris on Friday, said he “wanted to show less to put all the attention to quality.”

“That for me is the real luxury. It’s not about sequins anymore,” he told The AP.

The palette of black, charcoal, navy and oatmeal shades was resolutely minimalist, too. The models’ somber silhouettes cast dark shadows against catwalk’s centerpiece, a towering, snail-shell shaped spiral made from white fabric.

The long sleeveless coats gave the models a vaguely samurai-ish look, and the booming soundtrack — a hypnotic refrain from the Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai’s movie “2042″ — underscored the show’s Asian feeling. In a rarity for Paris shows, where the models are overwhelmingly white, five Asian models closed the Dior display.