Material World

Christian Dior, spring/summer 2012. Image by Catwalking.

Christian Dior, spring/summer 2012. Image by Catwalking.

The Christian Dior results are in and, contrary to what some people had predicted in March when John Galliano, Dior designer, was fired for saying bad stuff, they are good. In fact, they are very good.

Revenue for the first nine months is up 21 per cent (at constant exchange rates) to €705m against the same period in 2010 and retail revenue rose by 27 per cent (note: these are the Dior brand results, official name “Christian Dior Couture,” as opposed to the Dior Group results, which also include LVMH, which Dior owns). This is all inclusive of the period where many mentions of the brand were attached to the words “arrested” and “anti-Semitism” and “racial slurs,” you realise.

So what do we make of this? The conclusions, it seems to me, are pretty obvious:

1. Ye olde “no publicity is bad publicity” still holds true: the sheer fact that the name Dior (and related pretty catwalk photos) was in so many headlines and so many news programmes worked to spark interest, either because of a voyeuristic tendency among consumers, or because they couldn’t be bothered to read/listen to what followed, so merely noted that Dior was interesting and hence worth checking out; and

2. The fashion industry thinks consumers pay a lot more attention to its inner narratives than they actually do. Indeed, it’s quite possible that many Dior consumers didn’t really follow the Galliano story at all — it’s quite possible many Dior consumers didn’t even know who Galliano was. They knew Dior, and it was enough.

We all, fashion included, like to think we are the centre of the universe, and what happens to us matters to the world at large. Every once in a while, it’s good to get a little perspective.