The words the designer Raf Simons used in praise of his teams in the Christian Dior ateliers after the haute couture show on Monday afternoon were interesting: “They have no fear,” he said. The petites mains, the craftspeople of haute couture, are the keepers of the flame in high fashion. They are much lauded for their traditional skills, their long-suffering patience. The techniques handed down through generations, the hundreds of hours of close work behind the scenes, are championed each season.
To praise their fearlessness is rather different. And the choice of words is striking, in the context of Paris this month: whether consciously or not, Simons made a link between the workers’ spirit in the ateliers, and the spirit of the demonstrations on the streets of Paris after the terrorist attacks.
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