Christian Dior: Lisa Fonssagrives lives

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-01 11:07

"The whole idea came from having a cup of tea two years ago in New York with Irving Penn. We chatted a long time and he told me of the role of Lisa Fonssagrives in his art and work. When I realized her importance, as a figure, a beauty and a sculptor in her own right, I went from there," said a trim Galliano backstage in his parlor. The couturier builds a special room to greet guests in the back stage after every show, this season decorated like the sort of drawing room Noel Coward imagined as a set for one of his plays.

Even the fact that the final model, in an outlandishly over the top tulle dress with fins bigger than any Fifties Cadillac, stumbled on the catwalk only added to the sense of the unique at this great Lisa show.

Swedish born Fonssagrives moved to Paris to study ballet in the Thirties, going on to be a legendary cover girl who worked with such luminaries as George Hoyningen-Huene, Man Ray, Horst, Richard Avedon and Penn, whom she was to marry. In a neat piece of timing, the famous photo of Fonssagrives with elephants is plastered throughout Paris, the ad for a major Avedon retrospective that opened today.

Models appeared from a palatial country house backdrop replete with Old World chandelier, traipsing slowly in the towering heels. Galliano toughened up the mood with some great sadomasochistic platforms in metals chains.

As ever, John drew a great crowd, including Eva Mendes, Janet Jackson, Clotilde Courau, Jessica Christian, Olivier Martinez, Claudia Schiffer, Elsa Zylberstein, Marisa Berenson and Liv Tyler.

"I just loved that show. John's always so theatrical and the clothes were magical," shivered Tyler in Galliano's mini drawing room.

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