David Dixon - fall/winter 2007
We were invited to a fireside chat with David Dixon for his fall/winter 2007 show at Toronto’s L’Oréal Fashion Week, though not the kind that you think.
An outdoor show in front of a fire-pit, listening to the fire crackle and to the strains of ‘Kumbaya’, is atypical for Canada’s most elegant designer, and that’s just how we like it.
The cloche hats would have us believe that this was a tribute to prohibition-era women’s wear, yet make no mistake, modernity was the operative word. A black asymmetric knit shrug is paired with a stunningly white dress, wooing us with extreme contrast. Careful examination will reveal fine embroidery, creeping web-like as a near-invisible second skin.
There is definitely an organic quality to this collection, and this comes through brilliantly in the leather offerings. Dixon enshrines the colour gun-metal blue, making it his own, in a slightly sci-fi leather jacket with a built-in turtleneck and other shell-like qualities. Other incarnations of this are a visual feast, as in the leather dart bustier over a snug wrap-around sweater and pinstripe skirt.
No organic collection would be complete without hybrid pieces, and Dixon doesn’t disappoint. A cotton pinstriped dressed is topped with grey wool, a touch of softness around the neck that alters the piece completely. A pleated dress is enlivened by its distressed finish, its country charm at once accented and subverted.
There are, of course, nods to the austerity that Dixon can’t seem to resist. A collar-less, empire-waisted overcoat straddles the two worlds that he does best: the poetic and the sombre.
Daniel Cox, Fashion Editor
Marek Wlazlo, Photographer
