I went to see Dior & I at our local arthouse on the strength of the reviews, but I still honestly didn’t expect to like it all that much. I mean, I know nothing about fashion, and this film follows Raf Simons, apparently a very controversial pick for the post, as he comes into Dior as its new creative director and begins immediately to prepare for the new Haute Couture show. So far, so what, but this film really blindsided me. I absolutely loved it. Simons is a really compelling and charismatic guy and the film allows him to show both his confidence in his out-sized talent and the vulnerable fear of the man who can’t quite believe that he’s where he is. The film really delves deeply into the process of what goes into producing one of these fashion shows and the film is gripping & fascinating in all the right ways. It finds ways to humanize small characters, like a seamstress that’s been part of the company since its inception and a young woman that’s been chosen as the “face of Dior” at this new show despite having never been in an actual show before. The film finds ways of really getting to the emotions and feelings of these characters in such a way that I really empathized with them and their struggles. I never thought I’d be empathizing with the supermodel “face of Dior,” but when the camera catches her look of absolute terror just before she rounds the corner to hit the runway for the first time, I did. It’s a great, great movie and it’ll probably end up being my biggest surprise of 2015; I went expecting not to particularly like it and hoping, at best, to just kind of enjoy it. In the end, I absolutely loved it. 4 stars.
tl;dr – film about haute couture fashion puts a human face to the people behind the scenes and gives a fascinating look at the process of high fashion. 4 stars.