Couture Fashion Week: Christian Dior

I have to say I love Couture Fashion Week - where the most extravagant dresses on earth are unveiled. John Galliano kicked started things with an equestrian-themed Haute Couture collection for Christian Dior.

Drawing inspiration from all things horsey, Galliano re-created a spectacle inspired by dressage. Top-hatted and veiled, with their hair caught in oversized snoods, and brandishing four-foot long riding crops, the models pranced through the grand salons of the Dior maison on the Avenue Montaigne, with the precision of thoroughbreds.

For evening, Galliano switched his focus to America, drawing on multiple references, including the era of "The Gibson Girl" considered the ideal of Stateside feminine Beauty in the early 20th century, and the eccentric millionairess and style icon, Millicent Rogers.

Bewitching, sculpted ball-gowns in extraordinary colour combinations of amethyst and chocolate, claret and raspberry, or olive and petrol-blue, generated gasps of admiration from a front-row, celebrity line-up which included Kylie Minogue, Dita Von Teese and the French actress, Nora Arnezeder, the current "face" of the Dior “New Look” handbag. Galliano took his bow in full dressage kit, kneeling to kiss the hands of his models.