Star Rating:

Dior and I

Director: Frederic Tcheng

Actors: Anna Wintour, Raf Simons

Release Date: Friday 27th March 2015

Genre(s): Documentary

Running time: 90 minutes

The September Issue. The Devil Wears Prada. Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel. Coco Before Chanel. Designer Tom Ford’s excellent A Single Man. Cinema the last few years has enjoyed a flirtation with fiction and documentary and Dior And I slips into The Lighthouse on that coattail. However, this documentary is the least cinematic of the lot.

Director Frédéríc Tcheng (co-director of The Eye Has To Travel) attempts to personalise the impersonal fashion world by putting designer Raf Simons front and centre. The Belgian is known for his ready-to-wear minimalist style but he surprisingly takes on Dior’s lavish haute couture collection. Looking to show the world he won’t be pigeonholed into one style, he uses the collection to showcase what he can do, but eight weeks is a short time to pull it together…

Tcheng keeps things tight. The director marries the visuals, and the dialogue, with the music, as a discussion of Simons’ minimalist style is set to Richie Hawtin’s Plastique - the American’s electronic producer’s nod to minimalist Detroit techno. Clever, eh? Aphex Twin, Fuse and The Orb pop up to. And Tcheng nicely frames Simons’ first foray outside his comfort zone with flashbacks to Dior’s first show, the nervy narration culled from the designer’s memoirs mirror Simons’ fears of impending disaster.

But it can be dull. Save for the stunning flower display during the show, Tcheng’s visuals of patterns and designs and fabrics don’t excite. And Simons himself is an odd choice of subject. He seems to be an unhurried, pleasant man, which doesn’t give those speech scenes an air of electricity. He’s no Anna Wintour. There are flashes of pointedness when the date fast approaches and Dior give priority to private orders rather than the show, and later, besieged by nerves (he’s actually camera shy), he breaks down in tears but we never get to know this guy.

And the nerves can be a little disingenuous. Doesn’t every fashion documentary have the show/magazine come in on time? Isn’t this Emperor’s New Clothes world about people being told what to like and when to like it? Isn’t there too much money and talent and money and money behind Simons for him to fail?