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After designing Taylor Swift's wedding dress, Dior's Anderson returns to catwalk / Photo: © AFP
After designing Taylor Swift's wedding dress, Dior's Anderson returns to catwalk
Fresh from winning arguably the biggest job in fashion this year -- designing Taylor Swift's wedding dress -- Dior's artistic director Jonathan Anderson returned to the Paris catwalk Monday at the start of Haute Couture Week.
Swift and husband Travis Kelce's choice of the venerable Parisian house for their New York wedding ensembles this weekend represented a major coup for the LVMH-owned brand.
It also burnished the reputation of its low-key Northern Irish chief designer, 41, who was appointed almost exactly a year ago with the task of modernising all of Dior's fashion lines.
On the first day of Haute Couture Week, which featured a star-packed show from Schiaparelli and a galaxy-inspired Iris Van Herpen collection, Anderson sent out a highly wearable selection of heavily textured and pleated outfits.
He appeared to soak up applause, wearing a denim shirt and dark green chinos, after the final dress -- a bridal outfit, as per tradition -- did its final round of the circular catwalk at the Rodin Museum in central Paris.
-- Biggest stage --
Swift's choice of wedding dress had been the subject of speculation for months, with industry experts such as Vogue seeing her going for an American designer such as Ralph Lauren, or Vivienne Westwood which she wears regularly.
Dressing the world's best-known singer at her celebrity wedding for the ages at Madison Square Garden in New York was a major scoop for Anderson whose demanding boss, LVMH magnate Bernard Arnaud, and singer Sabrina Carpenter sat front row at the Paris show on Monday.
Anderson's collections have failed to win universal praise since he took over all three Dior fashion lines in June -- menswear, womenswear and Haute Couture -- becoming the first designer to do so since Christian Dior himself.
Given their similarities in age and the timing of their promotions, Anderson is seen as competing with Matthieu Blazy, 42, who was appointed by fellow French fashion behemoth Chanel last year.
Blazy has barely put a foot wrong, and designed the wedding dress of British singer Dua Lipa when she tied the knot with actor Callum Turner in Sicily earlier this month.
No pictures of Swift's dress have been released yet -- and Dua Lipa took a fortnight before revealing hers.
-- Celebs and debuts --
Elsewhere in Haute Couture Week, Puerto Rican music star Bad Bunny sat front row for the Schiaparelli show in a pastel yellow-coloured suit and a tie of plaited golden strands.
Although the show was titled "The Abyss", the fortunes of the world's most-streamed artist could scarcely be higher having just completed three sold-out stadium shows in France that have won rave reviews for his Debi Tirar Mas Fotos world tour.
Dutch designer Iris Van Herpen reached for the solar system for inspiration for her collection which featured her trademark marriage of innovative materials in both gentle floating and highly structured forms, as well as a spectacular luminescent dress.
Monday also saw a first show from the Irish designer Michael Stewart who brought his brand Standing Ground to Paris Haute Couture Week for the first time.
Indian designer Manish Malhotra will also debut during Haute Couture Week on Wednesday, taking the number of Indian designers to appear on the calendar to four -- alongside Rahul Mishra, Gaurav Gupta and Vaishali S.
H. de Araujo--JDB
