With this morning’s news – mention? – that Alexander Wang’s name has been tossed in the ring of names circling the Creative Director position at Dior, the fashion world’s finally thrown up its hands in disgust. It’s not that Alexander Wang isn’t beloved (in fact, one could argue that he’s the most talked about American designer at the moment), it’s that there’s no one left to talk about. At this point in the game, nearly seven months after the house of Dior dismissed John Galliano on March 1st, every probable name’s been bandied about. On top of this weekend’s Raf Simons-to-YSL mix-up people are tired of talking about things that aren’t actually happening. So we though we’d round up the top five contenders for the Dior job, the ones who actually made sense, and outline when they entered the race so that when they do make an announcement – because they’ll have to eventually! – you’re caught up.
March 1st: The same day that Dior CEO Sidney Toledano announced Galliano’s firing, Cathy Horyn said there were “no obvious choices” for a replacement, but acknowledged the media’s mention of Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz.
March 3rd: Suzy Menkes writes in the International Herald Tribune, “It is natural that the name of Riccardo Tisci, the current designer at Givenchy, is considered high on the list of possible replacements at Dior. The Italian-born and British-trained Mr. Tisci has climbed the steep learning curve toward the heights of haute couture at Givenchy.”
March 5th: Just two days later, Hilary Alexander interviewed Haider Ackermann backstage after his fall 2011 show and asked him about the rumors he was headed toward Dior. Ackermann said, “There are places I would like to go and that I might go.”
April 19th: A month later, WWD finally got into the rumor-mongering game with “The Players
Behind the Dior Succession.” Miles Socha wrote that LVMH honcho Bernard Arnault had a master list including a bunch of names, but it was Sarah Burton’s whose stuck out. For one thing, she was still relatively new to the whole Creative Director thing and for another, she was rumored to be making Kate Middleton’s wedding dress. Many speculated that if the latter rumor came true she would in fact be called by Arnault. (There’s been no talk of Burton going to Dior in months.)
September 12: Over the summer it became clear that Dior wouldn’t announce anything until fall so people went back to talking about other things, like royals, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s bikini body. But by the end of August the rumor mill went back into overdrive when WWD dropped another bomb: Marc Jacobs. The paper suggested the deal was as good as done and would be announced during Paris fashion week. Horyn liked that, writing, “I’m not surprised at all” and “where else can they look?”
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)