Tue 23 Jan 2007
Puccini would have dug this Christian Dior haute couture collection inspired by Madame Butterfly and packed with femme fatales worthy of a Kenji Mizoguchi tragedy.
Though the opera is set in Nagasaki and based on real events, Dior creative director John Galliano gave free rein to his imagination, mixing and melding Japanese, Chinese and Western imagery. From the remarkable bonsai-inspired headgear or Noh theatre makeup, it was as much Tokyo as Shanghai. One spectacular dress was even trimmed with images from Hokusai’s famous Giant Wave.