Dior by John Galliano: Flashback 2004 The Cleopatras

An arched back, a proud Nefertiti head with the eyes of a Sphinx — the silhouette outlined at the back of the runway could only be Cleopatra. And with his Dior show that kicked off the haute couture summer season, John Galliano excelled himself in showmanship.

  

Gilded dresses in reptilian leather, hieroglyphic prints, dangling scarab earrings, neckpieces with embedded turquoise and platform sandals draped in pearls were all masterpieces of imagination and craftsmanship. 

       The celebrity-studded audience was speechless after this extravaganza that left Elizabeth Taylor's famous 1963 rendition of the Egyptian queen look like a peasant on the shores of the Nile.

"Aah! Oh! I just can't even say anything," stuttered Sarah Jessica Parker from "Sex and the City," lining up with the French actress Arielle Dombasle to shower praise on Galliano, who in taking his bow had bent his body to recreate the Egyptian friezes that had inspired him on a trip to Cairo and Luxor. The Egyptian actress Youssra, invited especially for the show, gasped: "Amazing! What an inspiration."

       

As a hyper-sophisticated image maker of fantasies and dreams, Galliano is nonpareil. How he translated in the blink of a sequined eye a 4,000-year-old culture into clothing was wondrous. Yet this was no history lesson. A sophisticated wink came from the eye that opened the show as part of a cartoon projected on the backdrop.

"Working on all the details but always keeping it light," Galliano said backstage, although trying even to lift the beaded creations off the hanging rails would require a year's workout. 

      

The show was both superb and disturbing. Is Galliano the most amazing, evocative and extraordinary designer couture has ever had? Or is he a costumier who has invented a new two-dimensional haute couture, where the house of Dior builds up salable products behind a superbly decorated couture façade? Certainly the bags, with their tiny gilded scales, were delicious; the jewelry an opportunity to relaunch the Egyptian craze that Cartier set off in the 1920's. Many of the outfits could have been the stage costumes designed by Erté in that period.       

But whereas the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 detonated a cultural moment, Galliano just picked Egypt as a seasonal theme. You could not call this show the same old story, because a lot had changed: The women were noble, their bodies covered and no trace lingered of Galliano's trashy couture sexpots. Even the colors were subtle: a wash of soft terra cotta and ochre, flashed with lapis lazuli and gold. 

      

Yet the collection still had little to do with the reality of dressing — even dressing up, although some of the embroidered outfits, stripped of their extras, could be adapted as grand gowns. But as the fashion world is unlikely ever to see another madly creative designer working with an exceptional haute couture atelier, this was a moment to savor. 

      

The season kicked off with Yohji Yamamoto, who presented his fall/winter 2004 line — as he has done twice before. And it seemed like a metaphor for the haute couture shows, which have been mowed down like blades of grass until only six big Parisian houses remain. 

      

Yamamoto's flowered coats — misty mixes of pink roses — laid on the runway were sweet harbingers of spring. But shortly after the models had scooped up the floral outfits and paraded in herbaceous layers of mixed blooms, winter took over: black tailoring with only a flash of flame red dress, knitted sleeve pieces or a discreet flowered cuff.

       

Yamamoto has some claim to couture status with his beautiful and romantic tailoring. No matter that we have seen most of it before. The designer still impresses with the modernity of cuts that are never jagged, even if the loose, curved shapes, some standing away from the body as capes, were toughened up with silver chains or bold buttons marked with a signature "Y." Bags built in at the hips like pockets seemed less an ironic take on the logo handbag culture, and more an understanding that the modern woman craves day clothes that are both graceful and practical.